Fiction
September 2019
Going Under
by Sonia Henry
An Australian best-seller, Going Under is a unique insight into the brutal world of medical training. It is darkly funny, sad, inspiring and (perhaps unexpectedly) sexy. Dr. Katarina (Kitty) Holliday thought that once she finished medical school and found gainful employment at one of Sydney’s best teaching hospitals that her dream was just beginning. The hard years, she thought, were finally over. But Kitty is in for a rude shock. In between trying to survive on the ward, in the operating theatre and in the emergency department without killing any of her patients or wanting to kill herself, Kitty finds herself facing situations that rock her very understanding of the vocation she has devoted her life to. Going Under is a rare window into the world of a junior female medico that takes a good hard look at what being a doctor is really about and the unexpectedly separate worlds of clinical medicine and humanity. It explores the big themes – life, death, power and love through the eyes of Dr Holliday as she loses her identity and almost her mind in the unique world of the hospital. But it is also here that Kitty finds her own redemption and finally meets herself properly for the first time.
