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Doctors & Nurses
A hilarious new novel set in a rural doctor's office by the queen of "pitch-black comedy."
Nursing is a noble calling. So what the hell attracted Jen, a gigantic nurse with a habit of killing her patients? Now she's had the temerity, and misfortune, to fall in love with her boss, a dishy dashing doc known throughout the land for his long limbs, grey eyes, cleft chin, arresting bedside manner and other stereotypical attributes. Jen is ready to trample the ever-growing pile of prostrate patients in order to surrender herself utterly to him, but whenever she gets the chance, he's winched up into the air by helicopter, to attend yet another medical emergency! It's a prescription for disaster.
In her devastating send-up of life and love in a country doctor's office, Lucy Ellmann conducts a public autopsy on the failings of modern medicine, armed only with pathos, passion, pethidine, and a pasta machine.
Nursing is a noble calling. So what the hell attracted Jen, a gigantic nurse with a habit of killing her patients? Now she's had the temerity, and misfortune, to fall in love with her boss, a dishy dashing doc known throughout the land for his long limbs, grey eyes, cleft chin, arresting bedside manner and other stereotypical attributes. Jen is ready to trample the ever-growing pile of prostrate patients in order to surrender herself utterly to him, but whenever she gets the chance, he's winched up into the air by helicopter, to attend yet another medical emergency! It's a prescription for disaster.
In her devastating send-up of life and love in a country doctor's office, Lucy Ellmann conducts a public autopsy on the failings of modern medicine, armed only with pathos, passion, pethidine, and a pasta machine.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2006
5 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Lucy Ellmann
18 books389 followersLucy Ellmann was born in Evanston, Illinois, the daughter of biographer Richard Ellmann and writer Mary Ellmann (née Donahue). She moved to England at the age of 13 and was educated at Falmouth School of Art (Foundation degree, 1975), Essex University (BA, 1980), and the Courtauld Institute of Art (MA, 1981).
Her highly-praised autobiographical first novel, Sweet Desserts, was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize. Both her second book, Varying Degrees of Hoplessness, and her third, Man or Mango?, were shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, while her fourth, Dot in the Universe, was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and shortlisted for the Believer Book Award.
Lucy Ellmann is a regular contributor of articles on art and fiction to Artforum, Modern Painters, the Guardian, the Listener, the New Statesman, and the Times Literary Supplement. She is also a screenwriter and was a Hawthornden Fellow in 1992.
Her highly-praised autobiographical first novel, Sweet Desserts, was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize. Both her second book, Varying Degrees of Hoplessness, and her third, Man or Mango?, were shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, while her fourth, Dot in the Universe, was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and shortlisted for the Believer Book Award.
Lucy Ellmann is a regular contributor of articles on art and fiction to Artforum, Modern Painters, the Guardian, the Listener, the New Statesman, and the Times Literary Supplement. She is also a screenwriter and was a Hawthornden Fellow in 1992.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
November 21, 2010
The follow-up to Lucy Ellmann’s universally underappreciated masterstroke Dot in the Universe is another acerbic chunk of life-affirming misery and black comedy.
Doctors & Nurses is, like Dot, marketed in the manner of a chick-lit romp (shame on you, Bloomsbury) but contains a distinctively despicable and disgusted heroine, far removed from the moral cosiness of this genre. Jen (three-letter protagonists seem to be Ellmann’s dish) is an obese self-loathing hump of woman: a nurse, rampant fornicator, and admirer of the disappointingly named Dr. Roger Lewis – “a name full of anticlimax, a name full of COLLAPSE.”
She occupies a small room in the doctor’s surgery, pining for the slothful Dr. Lewis – a man more preoccupied with football than saving the lives of his patients. In fact, he has a penchant for medical malpractice – poking and prodding his patients into their graves while delighting in the squalor of his attic dwellings (a cluttered bunk of decrepitude which contains his irrelevant and mad wife). Jen, it turns out, is equally disinterested in healing the sick.
Jen and the doctor soon lock organs in an awkward sexual grapple, united in their disregard for the human body. As their relationship veers toward marriage, Jen encounters a series of setbacks – her spouse’s mad wife, some cadavers to whom she might be related, and policemen determined to convict her due to her plumpness. In a mad dash, she runs into the woods, sleeps naked, and gets back in touch with her universally loathed body.
What is the novel about, I hear you cry? Pfft. Jen is a caricature of the self-loathing Ellmann sees in modern women. She suggests, in explicit terms, women should appreciate their genitals more, and shows us a modest sample of the vagina on p29. (Hate to ruin the surprise). It also seems to be about the indifference of the NHS – how doctors are more interested in lunch than curing lung cancer. Controversial (and mad).
For the theorists, Ellmann sticks her snout into notions of what a modern novel should contain, throwing in (irrelevant) murders to please her readers and scolding us for our love of blood and death. In Ellmann’s world, blood and death are everywhere – why are we so preoccupied with gruesomeness and gore?
Also, the novel is eminently postmodern, although casually so – apart from the persistent CAPITALS and intertextual asides, the novel runs on sheer contempt. (The GOOD kind!) There is also an overwhelming list of malaises that runs for some six pages: the various ways we can DIE or SUFFER in this miserable life. Though somehow Ellmann makes this spot-your-illness activity FUN!
The most important aspect of the book is the sizzling speed, bile and guts with which Ellmann writes. Her novels appear sporadically (two in this decade so far – two in the 1990s) which suggests a great period of bile-simmering. Imagine someone bottling their spleen for half a decade and releasing it upon their beloved manuscript to cause HAVOC.
When Ellmann releases the hellhounds, it’s so devilishly entertaining.
Doctors & Nurses is, like Dot, marketed in the manner of a chick-lit romp (shame on you, Bloomsbury) but contains a distinctively despicable and disgusted heroine, far removed from the moral cosiness of this genre. Jen (three-letter protagonists seem to be Ellmann’s dish) is an obese self-loathing hump of woman: a nurse, rampant fornicator, and admirer of the disappointingly named Dr. Roger Lewis – “a name full of anticlimax, a name full of COLLAPSE.”
She occupies a small room in the doctor’s surgery, pining for the slothful Dr. Lewis – a man more preoccupied with football than saving the lives of his patients. In fact, he has a penchant for medical malpractice – poking and prodding his patients into their graves while delighting in the squalor of his attic dwellings (a cluttered bunk of decrepitude which contains his irrelevant and mad wife). Jen, it turns out, is equally disinterested in healing the sick.
Jen and the doctor soon lock organs in an awkward sexual grapple, united in their disregard for the human body. As their relationship veers toward marriage, Jen encounters a series of setbacks – her spouse’s mad wife, some cadavers to whom she might be related, and policemen determined to convict her due to her plumpness. In a mad dash, she runs into the woods, sleeps naked, and gets back in touch with her universally loathed body.
What is the novel about, I hear you cry? Pfft. Jen is a caricature of the self-loathing Ellmann sees in modern women. She suggests, in explicit terms, women should appreciate their genitals more, and shows us a modest sample of the vagina on p29. (Hate to ruin the surprise). It also seems to be about the indifference of the NHS – how doctors are more interested in lunch than curing lung cancer. Controversial (and mad).
For the theorists, Ellmann sticks her snout into notions of what a modern novel should contain, throwing in (irrelevant) murders to please her readers and scolding us for our love of blood and death. In Ellmann’s world, blood and death are everywhere – why are we so preoccupied with gruesomeness and gore?
Also, the novel is eminently postmodern, although casually so – apart from the persistent CAPITALS and intertextual asides, the novel runs on sheer contempt. (The GOOD kind!) There is also an overwhelming list of malaises that runs for some six pages: the various ways we can DIE or SUFFER in this miserable life. Though somehow Ellmann makes this spot-your-illness activity FUN!
The most important aspect of the book is the sizzling speed, bile and guts with which Ellmann writes. Her novels appear sporadically (two in this decade so far – two in the 1990s) which suggests a great period of bile-simmering. Imagine someone bottling their spleen for half a decade and releasing it upon their beloved manuscript to cause HAVOC.
When Ellmann releases the hellhounds, it’s so devilishly entertaining.
April 16, 2009
Not chick-lit. The main character may have a purse fetish, but I bet Bridget Jones never defecated in her's.
March 12, 2013
One more supposedly critically acclaimed book that left me wondering about supposedly smart, intelligent chick-lit! Between the CAPS and her ranting voice, I gave up around page 15. And getting through those pages was not pleasant! So glad I decided a while ago to abandon books when I started to hate them! There are so many good books to read it is not worth wasting time on one that is just does not appeal to me in any way whatsoever!
Angst is one thing, but mentally unstable is something else...and frankly there are much better books written from the point of view of the mentally unstable. Of course, it does help to acknowledge one's mental instability in the first place. But this first person fiction is so venomous, so lacking in humor (perhaps I missed the black humor, but I'm glad I did!) and without any redeeming qualities, at least in the first 15 pages, that it is not really worth wasting time on.
Angst is one thing, but mentally unstable is something else...and frankly there are much better books written from the point of view of the mentally unstable. Of course, it does help to acknowledge one's mental instability in the first place. But this first person fiction is so venomous, so lacking in humor (perhaps I missed the black humor, but I'm glad I did!) and without any redeeming qualities, at least in the first 15 pages, that it is not really worth wasting time on.
July 16, 2025
I’ve read this book approximately ten years ago and I cannot believe this author wrote Ducks, Newburyport 13 years later. The genre, style and literary standing of these two books are completely different.
In Doctors & Nurses Lucy Ellmann paints an absurdist portrait of a small medical clinic. The humor is extremely dry, or better said, a deep black slapstick. It made me laugh out loud at times, but my husband (who is not a medic) thought it was cringe. Recommended for people in the medical field who need a laugh with less plot or depth than (the slightly overrated) House of God.
In Doctors & Nurses Lucy Ellmann paints an absurdist portrait of a small medical clinic. The humor is extremely dry, or better said, a deep black slapstick. It made me laugh out loud at times, but my husband (who is not a medic) thought it was cringe. Recommended for people in the medical field who need a laugh with less plot or depth than (the slightly overrated) House of God.
May 27, 2010
Dirty and daring, but in the END an homage to the bothersome WEIGHT we call THE BODY. And through its incarceration in the END it is finally free. Doctors and Nurses is a well-CRAFTED experiment. Loved EVERY second of it.
August 6, 2015
I subtracted a half star for the excessive capitalization.
October 14, 2019
2.5 rounded up.
Due to my vast enjoyment of Ducks, Newburyport, I am making my way through all of the author's back catalogue. So far, this has been my least liked of Ellmann's canon, but it is still quite a wild read and shows the abundance of the author's wit and talent - just a bit TOO scatological for my tastes. And what is with that cover, and Bloomsbury trying to market it as 'chick-lit'? Bridget Jones's Diary it ain't! LOL
Due to my vast enjoyment of Ducks, Newburyport, I am making my way through all of the author's back catalogue. So far, this has been my least liked of Ellmann's canon, but it is still quite a wild read and shows the abundance of the author's wit and talent - just a bit TOO scatological for my tastes. And what is with that cover, and Bloomsbury trying to market it as 'chick-lit'? Bridget Jones's Diary it ain't! LOL
October 14, 2021
5 for wit and unflinching vision, 2 or 3 for sheer disgust one feels at every character. Bodily disgust. Moral disgust. Ellmann is a genius, and this has that brilliance to it, but it’s a deeply unpleasant text. Start almost anywhere else with her work. (I’ve only got Dot in the Universe yet to read and all the rest are still strange and unflinching and hilarious, but without the bitter horror of this one.)
March 28, 2025
Similar to Ellmann's previouses, it's consistently one-upping itself and manages to take you by surprise even after seemingly crossed every limit already (and this isn't so much the plot but rather sentence by sentence).
The capitalisation style unfortunately seems to have reached full maturity here, since, as far as I know, Lucy Ellmann stopped using it after this. Which is a shame, I really really enjoyed it.
As with her previous books, I do find it really hard to understand what the author is seriously meaning. Probably(?) some well intended views behind it that I (and probably most people) don't really agree with. But anyone that writes this well does deserve to be read.
The capitalisation style unfortunately seems to have reached full maturity here, since, as far as I know, Lucy Ellmann stopped using it after this. Which is a shame, I really really enjoyed it.
As with her previous books, I do find it really hard to understand what the author is seriously meaning. Probably(?) some well intended views behind it that I (and probably most people) don't really agree with. But anyone that writes this well does deserve to be read.
May 30, 2020
Too wacky for me, I couldn't get passed the half of the book.
June 12, 2023
Picked this up because I LOVED Ducks, Newburyport. A rather odd book; kept me interested enough to finish it, but I didn't love it.
May 16, 2025
Not funny, pretentiously “modernistic” nothing. . If it were not for the book club, I would not have finished it. Total waste of time.
December 17, 2007
I have never read a book with two more despicable main characters!
To top it off, it's a very self-referential, irreverant treatment of Jane Eyre (kind of).
I can't say much else.
To top it off, it's a very self-referential, irreverant treatment of Jane Eyre (kind of).
I can't say much else.
May 16, 2009
very confused if anyone would like to explain what was wrong with her and why she was so messed up id greatly appreciate it
Read
February 21, 2010Doctors and Nurses : A Novel by Lucy Ellmann (2006)
November 16, 2012
Was very odd, described as a romantic comedy, but written with CAPS for some of the words, scattered
June 14, 2014
Unfinished
August 8, 2015
weird and disturbing
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews