First, Do No Harm

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Summary: A Doctor's Choices, Larry Karp's "First, Do No Harm"
Review: "First, Do No Harm," by Larry Karp, begins with a choice: Martin Firestone, son of powerful and eccentric artist Leo Firestone, announces his decision to leave his career in computers and enter medical school. To Martin's shock and amazement, his father is furious, and insists that Martin lunch with him the next day. He has a story to tell him, he says. And so he does.
Martin's grandfather, Leo tells him, was Dr. Samuel Firestone, a legendary diagnostician and healer in their small New Jersey city. Leo's story begins the summer he turns sixteen, when his father offers him the opportunity to work as his extern. Their work takes them throughout the city, and Leo witnesses his father's remarkable abilities. Leo also becomes aware of many mysterious connections between the gifted physician--the Sorcerer--and the owner of a family-owned scrap metal business--the Junkman. As the summer progresses, the connections multiply: a heart attack that doesn't look like a heart attack, a blackmail threat, too many "nieces" having their babies. Leo begins to suspect that his father is involved in covering up a murder, and more. He decides to investigate, along with his best friend, and as the investigation plays out, disaster ensues.
"First, Do No Harm" is a father's story, told to his son, as well as a son's story, told about his father. But within these two stories are individual histories, of an era, of a city, and of another father and his son. And the final story spans three generations and two families--the Sorcerer's and the Junkman's--and the choices they made along the way. Most of these choices were made for the best of reasons. And what followed from them was often good: lives were saved, babies found loving adoptive parents, young women were enabled to live productive lives. But these same choices spawned great harm, as well: abortions, addiction, black marketing of metal and of drugs, and finally, violent death. Martin's grandfather, a larger than life character, practiced medicine on an heroic scale--but with heroism, came hubris, that pride that drove him to push the Hippocratic oath beyond its limits, redefining civil and human laws on his own terms.
The writing here is first-rate. The dual narratives proceed clearly, and the cadence is assured. A physician himself, Karp conveys the depth and scope of Samuel's skills with authority. The sense of place--and time--is vivid; it wouldn't be a Larry Karp book without music, and the background music of the narrative is played on a variety of radios, all playing the music of 1943, in the cars and homes and offices the reader sees. There a music box, too, that connects Leo himself to the Junkman just as Leo's father was linked to his nemesis, the Junkman's father. It also connects Leo to a girl named Harmony, his first love and "soul mate;" surely her name is no coincidence.
The characters are equally vivid--they speak in their own voices, and they tell their own stories, from Leo the artist to Murray the junkman to the characters within each narrative. And all these narratives dovetail with one another, like the music that permeates the book. As the several narratives unfold, the truths become more painful and more violent, until, in the end, a weary Martin concludes that "With the best intentions, the Sorcerer and the Junkman paved twin highways to hell."
Two of Leo's paintings frame the conclusion of the novel. One stays with Leo, and the other, an unfinished work, passes on to Martin, to complete with his own life. What he has learned has been devastating, but out of that devastation has come resolution, and a possibility of a greater final good.
"First, Do No Harm" is Larry Karp's fourth, and finest, novel. The first three, featuring amateur sleuth Dr. Thomas Purdue, are set in New York City, in the world of antique music boxes, and are engaging, intelligent, and intricately plotted. They share the same vivid sense of place that's found in "First, Do No Harm." Karp lives in Seattle, where he is working on his next novel.


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Summary: The way things were . . .
Review: If you're expecting another `music box mystery' from Larry Karp, you'll not find it here, although there certainly is an abundance of mystery, and a music box, just for good measure. This is a stand alone book, not part of his well-received series featuring Dr. Thomas Purdue.

Actually, this book is an almost total departure from the prior books of Karp, in that most of the action takes place in New Jersey, in the early years of W W II. It's rough and rugged, and entirely compelling. You might find the story hard to get into, but once there, putting it down is even more difficult.

Every family has a mystery somewhere, and not all of them see the light of day. It was only a fluke, really, that let Martin Firestone discover his family's mystery, and thanks to his persistence, we can share, and learn from it, as he did. Martin is twenty-eight, and a computer wizard. Suddenly, without warning, and no really good reason why, he decides to change his direction and become a doctor. Telling his father-the 76-year-old Leo, a world-famous artist- of this decision opens the past to both of them.

For Leo's father was a doctor. Samuel Firestone was far more than just a doctor, however. He was a brilliant diagnostician, an insightful healer, a man who both believed in and mistrusted his God, and who cared for people, regardless of age, race, color or ability to pay. His mission was to make folks feel better, and he did this in any way possible, even if not always entirely legal.

The rough, tough world of war-time scrapyards in Hobart, New Jersey, alternates with more civilized sections, but always the dirty, low-down side of the business is prominent. The young Leo spends his days in happy innocence until a music box found in the attic becomes the catalyst that will eventurally bring everything out into the open, exposing too many secrets better left hidden. In one devastating week, Leo's world comes tumbling down around him.

Now, fifty years later, Martin unintentionally opens the door to Leo's past, and using his own modern skills to offset Leo's artistic skills and Samuel's intuitive ones, all the old skeletons are finally laid to rest.

The nitty-gritty world of the young Leo is hard to inhabit, even for a short time, but the language and the violence is never gratuitous. This is an astonishing story of a supposedly kinder and gentler era, which it really wasn't at all. You won't soon forget Leo--and Harmony, the young girl who wanted only to be his companion, not his shadow--nor Leo's parents, Samuel and Ramona, the one patient beyond Sam's ability to cure. I'm glad I read it; I think most people would be.