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Dr. Kildare #2
Calling Dr. Killdare
It ook a brilliant operation, a certain young siren, and the solution to murder to get his job back after he had been framed and fired.
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1940
37 people want to read
About the author
Max Brand
1,824 books135 followersFrederick Schiller Faust (see also Frederick Faust), aka Frank Austin, George Owen Baxter, Walter C. Butler, George Challis, Evin Evan, Evan Evans, Frederick Faust, John Frederick, Frederick Frost, David Manning, Peter Henry Morland, Lee Bolt, Peter Dawson, Martin Dexter, Dennis Lawson, M.B., Hugh Owen, Nicholas Silver
Max Brand, one of America's most popular and prolific novelists and author of such enduring works as Destry Rides Again and the Doctor Kildare stories, died on the Italian front in 1944.
Max Brand, one of America's most popular and prolific novelists and author of such enduring works as Destry Rides Again and the Doctor Kildare stories, died on the Italian front in 1944.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 23, 2019
The usual method with these books was for the author to write a scenario for MGM that was then turned into a shooting script by others while "Brand" turned the scenario into a novel. The writing here seems rushed and most of the characterizations are thin, but unlike the first parallel book in the MGM film series, this one is actually more satisfying than the film. However, the formula is all too apparent even this early and the resolution is not very credible.
January 5, 2018
A few years ago, I got a book titled Max Brand's Best Stories from the library. It was actually a mistake; I'd requested Max Brand's Best Western Stories, Vol. 1. But I read it anyway. A couple of the selections were actually excerpts from longer works, and one of these was a chapter from Calling Dr. Kildare. That chapter did what all sample chapters are supposed to do: it made enough of an impression on me that I knew I had to read the rest of the book, as different from my usual reading tastes as it was. This month, I finally got hold of a copy, and it didn't disappoint.
Kildare was first introduced in the magazine short story "Internes Can't Take Money" in 1936. I think (though I'm not certain) that Calling Dr. Kildare was the second full-length novel to feature the character. In this book, Kildare is a young doctor working in 1930s New York City, studying under a famous diagnostician. The older doctor, the temperamental, terminally ill Dr. Gillespie, has his heart set on training Kildare as his successor, but is frustrated by how in his focus on amassing knowledge, Kildare has become an automaton, unable to relate to his patients as human beings or even remember their faces and names. Demoted to working in a city dispensary, Kildare finds himself on a case that brings him into contact with the human side perhaps more than Gillespie intended. He's surreptitiously summoned to remove a bullet from a boy from the slums who is hiding from the police, suspected of murder. Though failure to report the case to the police could mean the end of his career, Kildare keeps his secret and refuses to answer his superiors' questions about where he has been...and a large part of the reason is his falling abruptly for the boy's sister, though all his friends are certain she will be the ruin of him.
Max Brand may have had his ups and downs as a writer over the course of his massive output, but when he's at his best, he is razor-sharp. He didn't focus so much on the bigger picture of story and plot—his gift was for catching a scene, a moment, a person's mood or action. He's like a painter who rapidly slaps on paint with a thick brush, and suddenly there's a picture before your eyes. Every now and then I come upon a line so sharply observant, even if it's as simple as the description of a color or sound, that it stops me in my tracks and makes me go back to savor it again. I think that's what grabbed my attention in that sample chapter, and what kept me glued to the pages of this book.
Those who are squeamish or sensitive to medical talk probably wouldn't like it as much. It's not gory by any means, but the operations Kildare performs, such as a blood transfusion or the removal of a bullet, are explained in straightforward detail. I guess everybody has their own level of tolerance for this—I know I couldn't handle it the least bit in a film or in person, but somehow it doesn't bother me on the printed page.
There is a 1939 film adaptation, incidentally, which from its synopsis looks surprisingly faithful to its source material. Laraine Day sounds like a particularly good casting choice for the part of Mary Lamont, the nurse chosen by Dr. Gillespie to work with Kildare.
Kildare was first introduced in the magazine short story "Internes Can't Take Money" in 1936. I think (though I'm not certain) that Calling Dr. Kildare was the second full-length novel to feature the character. In this book, Kildare is a young doctor working in 1930s New York City, studying under a famous diagnostician. The older doctor, the temperamental, terminally ill Dr. Gillespie, has his heart set on training Kildare as his successor, but is frustrated by how in his focus on amassing knowledge, Kildare has become an automaton, unable to relate to his patients as human beings or even remember their faces and names. Demoted to working in a city dispensary, Kildare finds himself on a case that brings him into contact with the human side perhaps more than Gillespie intended. He's surreptitiously summoned to remove a bullet from a boy from the slums who is hiding from the police, suspected of murder. Though failure to report the case to the police could mean the end of his career, Kildare keeps his secret and refuses to answer his superiors' questions about where he has been...and a large part of the reason is his falling abruptly for the boy's sister, though all his friends are certain she will be the ruin of him.
Max Brand may have had his ups and downs as a writer over the course of his massive output, but when he's at his best, he is razor-sharp. He didn't focus so much on the bigger picture of story and plot—his gift was for catching a scene, a moment, a person's mood or action. He's like a painter who rapidly slaps on paint with a thick brush, and suddenly there's a picture before your eyes. Every now and then I come upon a line so sharply observant, even if it's as simple as the description of a color or sound, that it stops me in my tracks and makes me go back to savor it again. I think that's what grabbed my attention in that sample chapter, and what kept me glued to the pages of this book.
Those who are squeamish or sensitive to medical talk probably wouldn't like it as much. It's not gory by any means, but the operations Kildare performs, such as a blood transfusion or the removal of a bullet, are explained in straightforward detail. I guess everybody has their own level of tolerance for this—I know I couldn't handle it the least bit in a film or in person, but somehow it doesn't bother me on the printed page.
There is a 1939 film adaptation, incidentally, which from its synopsis looks surprisingly faithful to its source material. Laraine Day sounds like a particularly good casting choice for the part of Mary Lamont, the nurse chosen by Dr. Gillespie to work with Kildare.
December 19, 2023
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Calling Dr. Kildare is the second in the series from Max Brand. He is best known for his hundreds of Western novels, the most popular being Destry Rides Again. There were eight novels in the Dr. Kildare series beginning in 1940 with Young Dr. Kildare and finishing in 1943.
Dr. Kildare was such a popular series, it was made into a long running MGM movies series, radio programs, comics, and the TV series that ran for 5 seasons in the early 1960's making Richard Chamberlain a star.
In Calling Dr. Kildare, he has left his family home to work in a metropolitan hospital with the brilliant Dr. Gillespie who is slowly dying. Kildare has been chosen to work under the irascible Doctor and receive his vast knowledge. Gillespie has looked for twenty-five years for the perfect candidate and he believes Kildare is it. It's a great position, but the stress of it causes Kildare to be a real jerk to everyone, ignoring his family and reducing nurses to tears. He has a hard time looking past the symptoms to the heart of the patient which angers Gillespie and he's fired - demoted to work in the dispensary. Gaining public trust, he is asked to help a young gunshot victim in the cellar of a nearby house. Doing so without alerting the police means losing his license to practice, but he cannot turn a blind eye. How he operates on the patient and returns to the hospital, indeed restoring his name and solving the crime is an enjoyable tale.
I was really impressed with the writing style. Sparse, but with poetic moments I didn't expect. Speaking of the victim's beautiful sister Rosalie, he says "what he had from her was not a visual image but an intangible emotion such as music gives us when the pleasure is remembered but the notes forgotten." There are gems sprinkled throughout out the book that elevate the read. On the other side, his descriptions of giving makeshift blood transfusions made me wince when the needle went in.
Max Brand is the pseudonym of Frederick Schiller Faust, who wrote under about 10 other names. So popular were his Western serials that sometimes a magazine would come out with 4 or 5 of his stories in one issue under different names! In the 1920's he wrote serial westerns, by the late 1930's he was in Hollywood where Warner Brothers paid him $3,000 a week (a normal man's yearly salary).
Besides Zane Grey, the Westerns section of your bookstore are probably packed with Max Brand novels. One of the most prolific writers of all time, he wrote more than 500 novels and many short stories - His literary output is estimated between 25 and 30 million words! New books based on unpublished work and magazine serials are still being published, so that he has averaged a new book every four months for seventy-five years. Some work by him is reprinted every week, somewhere in the world.
The copy I read was published by Triangle Books in the 40's, with it's tanned pages and pulpy paper, a pleasure to read.
Calling Dr. Kildare is the second in the series from Max Brand. He is best known for his hundreds of Western novels, the most popular being Destry Rides Again. There were eight novels in the Dr. Kildare series beginning in 1940 with Young Dr. Kildare and finishing in 1943.
Dr. Kildare was such a popular series, it was made into a long running MGM movies series, radio programs, comics, and the TV series that ran for 5 seasons in the early 1960's making Richard Chamberlain a star.
In Calling Dr. Kildare, he has left his family home to work in a metropolitan hospital with the brilliant Dr. Gillespie who is slowly dying. Kildare has been chosen to work under the irascible Doctor and receive his vast knowledge. Gillespie has looked for twenty-five years for the perfect candidate and he believes Kildare is it. It's a great position, but the stress of it causes Kildare to be a real jerk to everyone, ignoring his family and reducing nurses to tears. He has a hard time looking past the symptoms to the heart of the patient which angers Gillespie and he's fired - demoted to work in the dispensary. Gaining public trust, he is asked to help a young gunshot victim in the cellar of a nearby house. Doing so without alerting the police means losing his license to practice, but he cannot turn a blind eye. How he operates on the patient and returns to the hospital, indeed restoring his name and solving the crime is an enjoyable tale.
I was really impressed with the writing style. Sparse, but with poetic moments I didn't expect. Speaking of the victim's beautiful sister Rosalie, he says "what he had from her was not a visual image but an intangible emotion such as music gives us when the pleasure is remembered but the notes forgotten." There are gems sprinkled throughout out the book that elevate the read. On the other side, his descriptions of giving makeshift blood transfusions made me wince when the needle went in.
Max Brand is the pseudonym of Frederick Schiller Faust, who wrote under about 10 other names. So popular were his Western serials that sometimes a magazine would come out with 4 or 5 of his stories in one issue under different names! In the 1920's he wrote serial westerns, by the late 1930's he was in Hollywood where Warner Brothers paid him $3,000 a week (a normal man's yearly salary).
Besides Zane Grey, the Westerns section of your bookstore are probably packed with Max Brand novels. One of the most prolific writers of all time, he wrote more than 500 novels and many short stories - His literary output is estimated between 25 and 30 million words! New books based on unpublished work and magazine serials are still being published, so that he has averaged a new book every four months for seventy-five years. Some work by him is reprinted every week, somewhere in the world.
The copy I read was published by Triangle Books in the 40's, with it's tanned pages and pulpy paper, a pleasure to read.
August 10, 2022
I have mixed feelings about Kildare in general, when I started reading Max Brand's Kildare series, I was thinking of the radio series and the movies which show Kildare more compassionate and not such a fickle young man. I like Gillespie and I will read the whole Max Brand series. "Calling Dr. Kildare" had me so thinking Jimmy a class royal jerk. Yes, he is a smart but his chasing skirts and then changing his mind so quick! I will read the next right away to see if he finds another female to propose to and then take a break.
Story in short- Kildare runs into trouble with treating a gunshot wound and not reporting it to the police. Will he lose his ability to be a doctor?
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 33
“I had to stop at the druggist’s,” answered the doctor. He looked at Harry’s big neck and shoulders, remembering the druggist’s suggestion that perhaps the world would be just as well off if old Galt passed on and let his son have his day. Time is ruthless; our children become our masters, he kept thinking. His mind flashed too, in eagle’s flight, to his own son Jimmy–grappling there in New York with some ideal too strong and cruel and beseeching to let him be. Young Doctor Kildare, eh? That made him, the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 37
father, old Doctor Kildare for sure. His thin lips smiled gently, fondly...
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 42
“Father isn’t doing so well,” Harry was saying. “He can’t eat–or won’t. And the temperature stays there. It won’t let up. He doesn’t know you’re coming; I took it on myself to telephone to you tonight.” “He’ll raise the devil, then,” said old Kildare, calmly. “I suppose he will and I’m sorry,” agreed Harry. “It’s all right,” answered the doctor. “The devils he raises are not
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 46
very black and he doesn’t half believe in them himself.” “Can you tell me what it really is?” asked Harry. “Ten years ago,” said Doctor Kildare, “you can remember that he had a chronic fever, also?” “I remember.” “That was a flare-up of an old chronic tuberculous infection,” added the doctor. “We beat it then; we’ll beat it now.” “Consumption!” said Harry. “And he’s ten years older!”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 51
“He’s the same old oak. There’s no dry rot in him,” stated the doctor. “The stock he comes from can be torn down but it takes a big wind to make it fall. Right now he’ll outfight half the youngsters in the world.”
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Poor Beatrice, actually I am glad she finally cut Kildare free. In "Young Doctor Kildare" at the end they got engaged and even with all his chasing a skirt then, he went to Beatrice because she made him feel better but when did he really give her anything, it seems not for a long time. He doesn't write her letters while engaged, yet he is running after a red head that could lose his medical license. It was selfish for Nick could have died without going to the hospital, so once again like the previous three books, Kildare feels he is above the law. He would not hear anything bad about the redhead, Rosalie, he finds time for her while still engaged to Beatrice and soon after he was free, he proposed to this stranger. I was glad Gillespie stopped the marriage but when I think about it, Kildare deserved to marry to her and I wonder how Kildare lack of money would satisfy her. I like Mary, the nurse though at first I was thinking about Beatrice. Kildare was lucky he did not lose his license and he was able to find the true killer.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 69
“Iron, quinine, and strychnine, It’s an old friend, that combination.” “There was a time when people didn’t have so many fool ideas,” said the sick man, “and they seemed to get on pretty well.” “They got on pretty well, John, but they didn’t get on so long.” “Can you send me down to my office tomorrow?” “Of course I can.” “Good! Good!” The old man picked himself up on his elbows and
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 73
grinned at Kildare until the gold of his back teeth was showing. “Now you’re talking like a man, and not a confounded doctor. Can you fix me up to go to the office tomorrow, sure enough?” “I can, and that’ll fix you for a longer trip the next day.” “A trip where?” snarled Galt. “To the cemetery,” said the doctor. Galt let his weight back against the pillows and looked wearily up at the ceiling. “Well, I don’t know...” he said.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 87
“Why should you be going around comforting other people, Kildare, when you’ve got trouble enough of your own?” “Trouble? Trouble?” The doctor was startled. “I said trouble and trouble I mean, When’d you last hear from that son of yours?”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 90
“I don’t know,” said the doctor. “I mean–I heard from him today.” “I don’t believe it,” snapped old Galt. “The whole town knows that he’s hardly written home since he went to New York.” “I tell you, I heard from him this very evening,” said the doctor. A pulse beat a rapid finger against the hollow of his throat. “I don’t believe it,” answered Galt. “Read that, then, and confound you!” exclaimed Kildare. He tossed a telegram on the bed. Galt, picking it up, read slowly:
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 96
TOO BUSY TO WRITE. ALL GOES WELL. LOVE JIMMY “Too busy to write?” mocked Galt, dropping the telegram. “And too selfish to stay home and help his father. You’ve spoiled that boy of yours, Stephen. He’ll go to hell in the city. He’s not bright enough to keep the pace those city doctors will set for him. He’s only a country lad and he’ll never be anything else.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 113
“Yes,” agreed the father, slowly, smiling at certain memories a bit ruefully. “There’s plenty of bulldog in Jimmy.” “Which means that perhaps he’ll not be spending much time out here in Dartford, and Beatrice...” “Don’t bog down,” the doctor urged. “Is there something between you and Beatrice?” “No, but there might be.” “Never stand in the shadow of another man if you can push him out of your way,” said old Kildare. “You mean that all is fair in–”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 119
“Put it another way,” the doctor interrupted. “Say that no matter how hard we try we’ll rarely get more than we deserve, so the wise fellows keep on trying.” “I only wanted to know,” said Harry Galt, eagerly, “just what she means to him.” The doctor paused at the bottom of the stairs. At last he answered: “I can’t tell you what anything means to Jimmy except that he’s fighting now with all his might to gain everything that Gillespie has to give. He’s fighting like a football player with his head
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 123
down. Sometimes I think he might make a little more yardage if he kept his head up. But I don’t know. Neither does anyone else. Jimmy’s not like the rest of us.” “No,” agreed Harry Galt, partly comforted and partly in doubt, “he never was like the rest of us.”
Story in short- Kildare runs into trouble with treating a gunshot wound and not reporting it to the police. Will he lose his ability to be a doctor?
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 33
“I had to stop at the druggist’s,” answered the doctor. He looked at Harry’s big neck and shoulders, remembering the druggist’s suggestion that perhaps the world would be just as well off if old Galt passed on and let his son have his day. Time is ruthless; our children become our masters, he kept thinking. His mind flashed too, in eagle’s flight, to his own son Jimmy–grappling there in New York with some ideal too strong and cruel and beseeching to let him be. Young Doctor Kildare, eh? That made him, the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 37
father, old Doctor Kildare for sure. His thin lips smiled gently, fondly...
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 42
“Father isn’t doing so well,” Harry was saying. “He can’t eat–or won’t. And the temperature stays there. It won’t let up. He doesn’t know you’re coming; I took it on myself to telephone to you tonight.” “He’ll raise the devil, then,” said old Kildare, calmly. “I suppose he will and I’m sorry,” agreed Harry. “It’s all right,” answered the doctor. “The devils he raises are not
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 46
very black and he doesn’t half believe in them himself.” “Can you tell me what it really is?” asked Harry. “Ten years ago,” said Doctor Kildare, “you can remember that he had a chronic fever, also?” “I remember.” “That was a flare-up of an old chronic tuberculous infection,” added the doctor. “We beat it then; we’ll beat it now.” “Consumption!” said Harry. “And he’s ten years older!”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 51
“He’s the same old oak. There’s no dry rot in him,” stated the doctor. “The stock he comes from can be torn down but it takes a big wind to make it fall. Right now he’ll outfight half the youngsters in the world.”
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Poor Beatrice, actually I am glad she finally cut Kildare free. In "Young Doctor Kildare" at the end they got engaged and even with all his chasing a skirt then, he went to Beatrice because she made him feel better but when did he really give her anything, it seems not for a long time. He doesn't write her letters while engaged, yet he is running after a red head that could lose his medical license. It was selfish for Nick could have died without going to the hospital, so once again like the previous three books, Kildare feels he is above the law. He would not hear anything bad about the redhead, Rosalie, he finds time for her while still engaged to Beatrice and soon after he was free, he proposed to this stranger. I was glad Gillespie stopped the marriage but when I think about it, Kildare deserved to marry to her and I wonder how Kildare lack of money would satisfy her. I like Mary, the nurse though at first I was thinking about Beatrice. Kildare was lucky he did not lose his license and he was able to find the true killer.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 69
“Iron, quinine, and strychnine, It’s an old friend, that combination.” “There was a time when people didn’t have so many fool ideas,” said the sick man, “and they seemed to get on pretty well.” “They got on pretty well, John, but they didn’t get on so long.” “Can you send me down to my office tomorrow?” “Of course I can.” “Good! Good!” The old man picked himself up on his elbows and
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 73
grinned at Kildare until the gold of his back teeth was showing. “Now you’re talking like a man, and not a confounded doctor. Can you fix me up to go to the office tomorrow, sure enough?” “I can, and that’ll fix you for a longer trip the next day.” “A trip where?” snarled Galt. “To the cemetery,” said the doctor. Galt let his weight back against the pillows and looked wearily up at the ceiling. “Well, I don’t know...” he said.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 87
“Why should you be going around comforting other people, Kildare, when you’ve got trouble enough of your own?” “Trouble? Trouble?” The doctor was startled. “I said trouble and trouble I mean, When’d you last hear from that son of yours?”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 90
“I don’t know,” said the doctor. “I mean–I heard from him today.” “I don’t believe it,” snapped old Galt. “The whole town knows that he’s hardly written home since he went to New York.” “I tell you, I heard from him this very evening,” said the doctor. A pulse beat a rapid finger against the hollow of his throat. “I don’t believe it,” answered Galt. “Read that, then, and confound you!” exclaimed Kildare. He tossed a telegram on the bed. Galt, picking it up, read slowly:
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 96
TOO BUSY TO WRITE. ALL GOES WELL. LOVE JIMMY “Too busy to write?” mocked Galt, dropping the telegram. “And too selfish to stay home and help his father. You’ve spoiled that boy of yours, Stephen. He’ll go to hell in the city. He’s not bright enough to keep the pace those city doctors will set for him. He’s only a country lad and he’ll never be anything else.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 113
“Yes,” agreed the father, slowly, smiling at certain memories a bit ruefully. “There’s plenty of bulldog in Jimmy.” “Which means that perhaps he’ll not be spending much time out here in Dartford, and Beatrice...” “Don’t bog down,” the doctor urged. “Is there something between you and Beatrice?” “No, but there might be.” “Never stand in the shadow of another man if you can push him out of your way,” said old Kildare. “You mean that all is fair in–”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 119
“Put it another way,” the doctor interrupted. “Say that no matter how hard we try we’ll rarely get more than we deserve, so the wise fellows keep on trying.” “I only wanted to know,” said Harry Galt, eagerly, “just what she means to him.” The doctor paused at the bottom of the stairs. At last he answered: “I can’t tell you what anything means to Jimmy except that he’s fighting now with all his might to gain everything that Gillespie has to give. He’s fighting like a football player with his head
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 123
down. Sometimes I think he might make a little more yardage if he kept his head up. But I don’t know. Neither does anyone else. Jimmy’s not like the rest of us.” “No,” agreed Harry Galt, partly comforted and partly in doubt, “he never was like the rest of us.”
July 31, 2024
This book had virtually nothing to do with medicine or being a doctor. I don’t see the point of this book and am now reluctant to read the rest of the series.
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