Nurse Wolf and Dr. Sacks

by Paul Theroux

Nurse Wolf is Manhattan's Queen of Pain - she gives pleasure by inflicting it, gains pleasure from causing it. The neurologist Dr Oliver Sacks is her opposite, a defuser of pain, a comforter. And yet the dominatrix and the doctor operate in similar both are involved in the ritual and theatrical aspects of sexuality. In Nurse Wolf and Dr Sacks, Paul Theroux hears two remarkable confessions. His book offers an extraordinary insight into the 'other' side of New York.

Genres: Fiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published August 20, 2001

About the author

Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through East Asia, as far east as Japan, and then back across Russia to his point of origin. Although perhaps best known as a travelogue writer, Theroux has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast.

He is the father of Marcel and Louis Theroux, and the brother of Alexander and Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

For better or worse these two extended essays seem as though they have been lifted directly from one of Theroux’s non-fiction books. His ability as elucidate a character is fantastic, but there’s no attempt to weave the two characters together, begging the question of why have the book in the first place?

[Harmony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theroux somehow manages to combine a conversation with/biography of the brilliant neurologist, Oliver Sax, with a portrait of a dominatrix, who we know only as Nurse Wolf. The two people are so different on the surface and yet once Theroux delves into their lives he discovers that they both share a sort of drive to nurture people and relieve their suffering...which in Nurse Wolf's case sometimes means actually causing pain. It's been a long time since I read this book, which Justin and I found in an english language bookstore in Ecuador. But I've searched for it ever since because I remember being blown away by Theroux's ability to tell a story and find the link between two so seemingly different beings.

[Niklaus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ottima seconda parte. Confesso che la prima parte mi aveva disgustato. Sebbene l'ottica fosse quella psicopatologica non ho provato nessuna empatia con i personaggi e tantomeno mi interessavano le perversioni descritte. Non che sia di ristrette vedute ma l'osservare il mondo SM non rientra fra i miei principali interessi. Al contrario la seconda parte riscatta alla grande il libro che stavo per cestinare. La descrizione umana di un grande come Sacks, l'analisi scientifica ed umana dei pazienti ed il finale a sorpresa in cui l'osservatore scopre di essere stato per tutto il tempo osservato, beh e' quasi all'altezza dei libri di OS