Bohjalian (Midwives, 1997, etc.) returns to small-town Vermont for
a meditation on grief and healing. But what begins with a strong
voice and slow pace loses its center, becoming by the end fraught
with strained dialogue and inconceivable plot. The reader meets
Leland Fowler, Deputy State's Attorney in the village of Bartlett,
two years after his wife's death. He is single father to
six-year-old Abby, and he's developed a gut and a chronic soar
throat. Carissa Lake, the homeopath he goes to see, informs him of
homeopathy's basic tenet, that like cures like, and prescribes a
remedy of arsenic that instantly cures his two-year cold. Leland
becomes obsessed with Carissa and the two have a night of love
beneath the Christmas tree. But where Leland's grief starts to end
is where the couple's trouble begins - one of Carissa's patients
falls into a coma that his wife believes is the homeopath's fault,
and Leland is the first lawyer to hear her story. Things speed up
as Carissa and Leland perform a series of random acts designed to
cover up their acquaintance and Carissa's potential guilt. From the
night the two of them doctor documents that would chronicle their
reckless meetings, the reader is expected to accept the idea that
Leland would jeopardize his career, his position in the church and
community, and Abby's stability, to help a woman he's slept with
once. Meanwhile, the lovers' downward spiral is paralleled by
Leland's sketchily told addiction to homeopathic arsenic. That he
makes no connection between the "remedy" and his body's Emma
Bovaryesque response, and that no character suffers the
consequences of their actions, strains belief. A two-dimensional
take on morality through formulaically good characters whose bad
behavior is a bit of a stretch. (Kirkus Reviews)
" The Law of Similars is fast-paced and absorbing. Few writers can manipulate a plot with Bohjalian's grace and power."-The New York Times Book Review
From the number one bestselling author of Midwives comes this riveting medical thriller about a lawyer, a homeopath, and a tragic death. When one of homeopath Carissa Lake's patients falls into an allergy-induced coma, possibly due to her prescribed remedy, Leland Fowler's office starts investigating the case.
But Leland is also one of Carissa's patients, and he is begining to realize that he has fallen in love with her. As love and legal obligations collide, Leland comes face-to-face with an ethical dilemma of enormous proportions. Graceful, intelligent, and suspenseful, The Law of Similars is a powerful examination of the links between hope and hubris, love and deception.
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