THE FAMILY DOCTOR

A gripping novel that deals with the cruellest of domestic tragedies and the eternal question: how do we protect women from violent men when everything in that should protect them fails?

THE FAMILY DOCTOR is a domestic tragedy with a Dexter-esque twist. Meet three lifelong friends who are now in their forties: Paula, a kind and sensible general practitioner, recently widowed; Stacey and her two children, who have escaped a violent father and husband; and Anita, a still-single crime journalist. The tragedy that sets everything in motion is chillingly common. Matt, Stacey's ex, stalks and finds Stacey and the children, murdering them before turning the gun on himself. Paula and Anita are distraught. Stacey had been sheltering with Paula, who discovers the grisly scene, and Anita, as a seasoned crime reporter, has seen this time-and-time again. As Paula and Anita try to process their grief, they are constantly re-traumatised through their work. Paula's patients show signs of being abused by their male partners with alarming frequency. Anita is constantly seeing perpetrators of violence evade justice on legal technicalities in her daily work as a court reporter. The two try to be there for each other but things start to fall apart. These combined pressures force them both into an even darker place. While Anita shows up to court every day, observing the system and holding it to account through her journalism, hoping that the judge and jury will convict men of their awful crimes, Paula goes totally rogue. The doctor tries her best to save the women in her care from danger at the hands of their husbands, but when everything practical fails, she is forced to consider her oath as a doctor and if she will kill a man to protect a vulnerable woman. As we see in the news constantly, it seems to Paula that nothing can protect women like Stacey she had the best friends in the world protecting her and not even that was enough. The novel poses the question 'kill or be killed' in a smart, believable way, and readers will be drawn to the honest moral dilemmas within its pages and the limitations of our society in protecting women from harm. At the novel's climax, those who have judged Paula for her actions will be forced to reckon with what they would do in her shoes, bringing the novel to a satisfying conclusion. The Family Doctor is about women's fury, traumatic grief, deep friendship, and the preciousness of life. It's about trying to grab some control over chaos and injustice. A novel of searing emotional truth, told with the relentless pull of a thriller, it will never let you go. Debra Oswald is a playwright, screenwriter and novelist. She is a two-time winner of the NSW Premier's Literary Award and author of the novels Useful (2015) and The Whole Bright Year (2018). She was creator/head writer of the first five seasons of successful TV series Offspring. Her stage plays have been performed around the world and published by Currency Press. Gary's House, Sweet Road and The Peach Season were all shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Award. Debra has also written four plays for young audiences - Dags, Skate, Stories in the Dark and House on Fire. Her television credits include award-winning episodes of Police Rescue, Palace of Dreams, The Secret Life of Us, Sweet and Sour and Bananas in Pyjamas. Debra has written three Aussie Bites books for kids and six children's novels, including The Redback Leftovers, Getting Air and Blue Noise. Debra has been a storyteller on stage at Story Club and will perform her one-woman show, Is There Something Wrong With That Lady?, in 2021.