Thursday Afternoons

by Monica Dickens

Book Overview

Successful, admired, fairly happily married and ambitious, Steven Sheppard is very much a pillar of the community. But inside him lurks a little demon of boredom which prompts him to ask if there... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140007148
• ISBN13: 9780140007145
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.1" x 0.6" x 4.3"

Customer Reviews

Potrait of a doctor, saint and sinner

Monica Dickens is one of those authors who can make someone's boring, everyday life into a captivating narrative. "Thursday Afternoons" is the story of a middle-aged GP, successful in his career but dissatisfied with life. At first Steven sounds like a great guy surrounded by a bunch of silly people - the adoring but incompetent trainee nurse, his insipid worrywart of a wife, jolly friends who can't understand his artistic ambitions, various whiny patients, the creepily silent battered woman his wife hires as a maid. The minor characters are almost more three-dimensional than Steven himself. But as the story develops, we see that he too has a remarkably selfish side, illustrated for instance by his reluctance to answer the phone resulting in the death of a client's baby. I'm not sure what to make of the ending - I can't say I didn't see that one coming so it wasn't a deus ex machina or a gratuitious "twist" but it was certainly unexpected.