Sláinte James Morrow, The Book Guild Ltd., 2002. £15.95 hardback, 283 pp. ISBN: 1857766822

As a consultant neurologist and honorary clinical lecturer at a Belfast hospital, and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, James Morrow is known to many in the fields of neurology and epileptology. In his spare time he has added to his repertoire an English Literature and Philosophy degree and now his first novel. Set in IRA-riddled Belfast, Sláinte (Irish for cheers—pronounced Slaunch-e), follows the lives of journalist C.J. McCormick, his wife Julie, and their family doctor Harry Wallace caught in the midst of seemingly immovable medical bureaucracy and terrorist intimidation. Shortly after the birth of their second child, Julie is diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, but is told that, due to restrictive prescription procedures, she is unable to receive beta interferon— the only drug likely to alleviate the symptoms of her condition. The only option available is private care which C.J. and Julie are unable to afford until they come up with a plan to obtain sponsorship for playing one hole on each of the 32 golf courses in Ireland in 24 hours. Meanwhile, through his information sources C.J. becomes embroiled in a breakaway terrorist group who beat and threaten to kill him unless he gives them the money raised for Julie’s treatment. Morrow’s novel is not directly related to epilepsy, but it does make some pertinent points about the handling of prescription practice by the National Health Service. It also offers some witty insight into Morrow’s views on the chief virtues of a good doctor: “. . . a good doctor should model himself on the archangel Gabriel. Not because he should radiate goodness and light, nor indeed because he was next to God, but because the archangel Gabriel was a good communicator. He must have been; after all, it was he who persuaded an unmarried, 14-year-old girl in a strict Jewish society to allow herself to become pregnant by some invisible and unseen entity”. His views (well, Harry Wallace’s views) on the markers of attractiveness in women are no less succinct if a little limited: “. . . if one needed to rely on just two features from which physical attractiveness could be gauged, then these were undoubtedly straight while teeth and a thin upper arm”. But where Sláinte really impresses is in its depiction of the lives of ordinary people overtaken by circumstances beyond their control. Governmental reforms and political infighting may be broadcast on a national scale, but their effects as they are filtered down to individuals trying to live their everyday lives, is not often considered. To the uninitiated outsider and the policy-maker it may be a momentous occasion, but to those who have to live with it, it’s only Tuesday.