New Patrick Taylor Book: "James Herriot for Humans"
The Apprenticeship of Doctor Laverty
By Patrick Taylor
ISBN 1-894663-77-2
Insomniac Press
The Apprenticeship of Doctor Laverty is the third novel for Northern Ireland-born author Patrick Taylor, who has previously published Pray For Us Sinners and Only Wounded. Born in 1941, Taylor was raised in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. After medical and specialist training at Queen’s University in Belfast, he emigrated to Canada in 1970 to pursue a career in academic medicine.
When he was 16, Taylor won his first prize for writing fiction and he has been writing fiction ever since. However, it wasn’t until he retired from his day job and settled on Bowen Island, B.C., in 2001, that he was able to devote full time to both his passion for writing and sailing.
Patrick Taylor has a wry sense of humour with a quick turn of Irish phrase and he has a genetic knowledge of the Celts he writes about. He said, “The Apprenticeship of Doctor Laverty is basically a comedy of errors set in 1964, in a fictional village in the North of Ireland.
“The name of the village is Ballybucklebo, which translates to: bally is the Irish for townland, buachaill is the Irish for boy, and bo is the Irish for cow. I have been carrying that name in my head all these years, ever since my high-school French teacher who, when enraged by my inability to conjugate verbs, yelled, ‘ Do you know something Taylor, you’re so thick, you could have come from Ballybucklebo’.”
Taylor explains, “the story is set in 1964, so that I can get out of present time, because I didn’t want to get into a lot of the social ramifications of the way we live now, I wanted to go back to a simpler time.
“Basically, the story is about Barry Laverty, a young 24-year old man fresh out of medical school and still wet behind the ears. He joins this old 56-year old boy who has been in practice in Ballybucklebo for years. And the question is: will the young fellow stay as a General Practitioner or is he going to move on in his medical career. All of this is going to hinge on how he gets on with Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly.
“These two fellows have to work out their relationships and that’s played out against their dealings with their patients...all of whom are as queer as two left feet. The cast is completed with a cat called, Lady Macbeth. She’s called that because O’Reilly says she would kill to rule the kingdom, and an alcoholic black labrador called Arthur Guinness, because he’s black Irish and has a good head on him just like the stout.
“And then, the whole thing is rounded out by Patricia, a girl that young Barry falls in love with. She is exceptional for her time. She’s actually a student of civil engineering and has read the works of Betty Frieden and has some ideas about women’s lot in life and is a bit ahead of her time to tell the truth. And as you would expect, she and young Barry have a stormy love life. And that’s basically what the book is about.”
Taylor said he wanted to go back to his roots and write a simple story as he said, “there is so much of what I call terribly meaningful fiction out there at the moment. What I mean about meaningful is that the beauty of the sentences are so overpowering that the story gets lost. I just hope there is a market for something as simple as a good story. Someone has described my book as ‘James Herriot for humans’ and I was very flattered by that.”
No sooner has The Apprenticeship of Doctor Laverty been published and Patrick Taylor has already written 403 pages of his new book to be entitled Now And At The Hour Of Our Death which will be a sequel to his previously published book Pray For Us Sinners.
The Apprenticeship of Doctor Laverty would provide some lively reading through the long dark nights of winter, as well as a welcome gift for the Celts on your Christmas gift list.
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