On Friday, July 7, at 6:00 p.m., Dr. Stephen Bergman, who writes under the nom de plume Samuel Shem, will be at Hudson Hall to talk about his new book, Our Hospital.
It's been a decade since Bergman, who grew up in Hudson and left after graduating from Hudson High School in 1962 to attend Harvard, has been back to talk about one of his books. He was here a couple of times in 2008 to talk about The Spirit of the Place, a novel set in a place called Columbia, NY, an only slightly fictionalized Hudson. At the center of the plot of The Spirit of the Place is an event that took place in the actual Hudson: the struggle to save the General Worth Hotel in 1969. Bergman was invited back in 2009 to speak at a fundraising dinner to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Hudson Area Library. (Bergman's mother, Rose Fuchs Bergman, whose spirit is a major character in The Spirit of the Place, was a major force in founding the library in 1959.) Bergman came to Hudson again in 2013 when the paperback edition of The Spirit of the Place was released.
In those years, there was the expectation of another Samuel Shem book set in a fictionalized Hudson and inspired by an actual event. That book was to be set in 2003 Hudson, and the event was the unfortunate fate of Ansar Mahmood, the Pakistani pizza deliverer who was arrested a month after September 11, 2001, on suspicion of terrorism for taking pictures of the view from Hudson's water treatment plant and deported in July 2004 for "harboring illegal aliens." That book, although eagerly awaited by some, never happened.
Now, fifteen years after The Spirit of the Place, Bergman has written another book set in Hudson, Our Hospital, in which a doctor returns "to his economically depressed hometown in upstate New York to help the struggling hospital battle the COVID-19 pandemic and the money-driven bureaucracy." The doctor, Dr. Roy Basch, is also the main character in Bergman's best-known book, The House of God (1978), and its sequel, Man's 4th Best Hospital (2019). Our Hospital is a sequel to those two books. In a review of Man's 4th Best Hospital that appeared in The New Yorker, called, "'The House of God,' a Book as Sexist as It Was Influential, Gets a Sequel," Rachel Pearson wrote of the main character:
Roy Basch is back, and his life in the years between the two books maps closely with Bergman's. Both men married a psychologist . . .; both adopted a daughter from overseas; both became psychiatrists with a special focus on addiction medicine; both wrote a novel called 'The House of God.'"
In the new book, this character, perceived to be autobiographical, returns to a fictionalized version of his hometown, Hudson, which in the author's mind continues to be "economically depressed."
The event at Hudson Hall is free, but reservations are recommended. Click here for more information and to reserve your spot.
COPYRIGHT 2023 CAROLE OSTERINK
Here is an idea for a best selling horror story. Young Hudson NY children dragged by their parents to the corner of 7th and Warren. Forced to climb up a set of creaky old stairs followed by the scary walk down a long dark hallway where Stephen's father waited for his next frightened child ! Dr. Sigmund Bergman , my dentist from 1956 until he sold his practice to Dr. Danz in the mid- 1970's.
ReplyDeleteBob - that was my experience. The whirring of the pulley driven drill, the smell of the office, Dr. Berman with the head mirror and old time white gown. The only relief for a little kid was the knowledge that there were "Highlights" magazines to read.
ReplyDeleteMy dentist was Dr Telchens at 745 Warren St. which was bad enough but the horror as a child was Dr Bliss at 809 Warren when your a little boy in the 60's getting your round of shots from her. But at that age, anything with a needle was pure freaking horror!!!
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