Description Biography & True Stories Published 09/06/2022 by PAN MACMILLAN (Picador) in the United Kingdom Hardback | 256 pages, 50 b/w plates A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE A The Times Book of the Year 2022 Polly Morland was clearing her late mother’s house when she found a battered paperback fallen behind the family bookshelf. She was astonished to see an old photograph of the remote, valley in which she lives. The book was A Fortunate Man, John Berger’s classic account of a country doctor working in the same valley more than half a century earlier. This chance discovery led Morland to the doctor who serves that valley community today. This doctor is a woman whose own medical vocation was inspired by reading the same book as a teenager. A Fortunate Woman tells her true story, and how the tale of the old doctor has threaded through her own life. Working within a community she loves, she is a rarity in contemporary medicine. Revisiting Berger’s story after half a century of change, both in our society and in the ways in which medicine is practised, A Fortunate Woman details how doctoral life has changed. A Fortunate Woman Interweaves the doctor’s story with those of her patients. Furthermore, the reflecting on the relationship between landscape and community, and upon the wider role of medicine in society creates a unique portrait of a twenty-first century family doctor. Illustrated throughout with photographs by Richard Baker. What Others Are Saying… ‘Contains a profound message for the future at a critical moment for general practice and us all’ – Wendy Moore, TLS ‘I was consoled and compelled by this book’s steady gaze on healing and caring. The writing is beautiful’ – Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater and Ghost Wall ‘A vibrant and authentic portrait of the rural family doctor in these difficult contemporary times’ – Trisha Greenhalgh, Professor of Primary Care at the University of Oxford ‘Morland writes about nature and the changing landscape with such lyrical precision that her prose sometimes seems close to poetry’ – Christina Patterson, The Sunday Times
