Big Doc's Girl

by Mary Medearis

Overview

"One of the rare novels that rings with sincerity from the first word to the last." -Redbook Review




Mary Clayborne, the teenage daughter of a country doctor and a piano teacher, dreams of going to a conservatory and becoming a concert pianist. When her mother falls ill, she temporarily puts aside her ambition in order to care for her younger brothers and sisters. But when another, larger tragedy strikes, she must decide whether to stay in the small town where her family lives or marry her childhood friend and join him in his lucrative medical practice in St. Louis.

The choices are not clear-cut, and the grace with which every person in this story makes his or her own decisions is a very large part of the beauty of Big Doc's Girl. This coming of age story will relate to most adolescents with a message of resourcefulness, respect and responsiblity. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780935304879
Publisher:	August House Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	01/27/2006
Series:	Buried Treasure
Pages:	140
Product dimensions:	6.98(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.54(d)
Lexile:	650L (what's this?)
Age Range:	1 - 12 Years

About the Author

Mary Madearis Bio:

Though she always considered herself a musician, Mary Myrtle Medearis was best known as the author of Big Doc’s Girl, a novel that grew out of an assigned autobiographical short story in a creative writing class. It has the distinction of having stayed in print longer than any other work of fiction by an Arkansas author. Ever tenacious, Medearis enjoyed great success as a writer and historian in spite of her humble beginnings - and partly because of them.

Mary Medearis was born in North Little Rock. As a young girl, her mother, Myrtle Hendricks taught her to play the piano and gave lessons to help support the family. Her father, Dr. Robert Medearis, practiced medicine as a country doctor. Mary, whose maternal grandparents were seasoned vaudeville performers, inherited her family’s love for music.

She decided to enroll in a speech class at Columbia University because New Yorkers had trouble understanding her Arkansas accent. Upon registering, Medearis learned that the speech class was full but that a creative writing class had openings. The registrar told her the writing class would also emphasize oral performance, so she enrolled. When the writing professor assigned an autobiographical short story, Medearis wrote “The Death of a Country Doctor” about the death of her father. Her writing teacher was so impressed with her work that he entered it in a competition sponsored by Story magazine and won. A film producer encouraged her to develop a screenplay, which led to a publishing contract with the J. B. Lippincott Company for a novel-length treatment of the same story. Medearis used her advance to buy a new piano.

Upon its publication, Big Doc’s Girl was praised in the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, and scores of other publications. It soon earned a place on the New York Times Bestseller List, and the Times also named it one of the ten best books published that year. 

Editorial Reviews

"Warmly written in an unaffectedly musical prose, alive with real people and the fires of living, filled with uproarious humor and dialogue that is exactly right, this brilliantly human story lives with you long after the last reluctantly turned page."

Los Angeles Book Review

"Here is a story right out of middle America about the kind of Americans we can be proud we still have in this country ... If it comes to the attention of only a small minority of those who would enjoy it immensely, it will be a fabulous best seller."

New York Times Book Review

One of the rare novels that rings with sincerity from the first word to the last.

Redbook