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Doc  By  cover art

Doc

By: Mary Doria Russell
Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
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Editorial reviews

Mary Doria Russell's last two novels have been works of historical fiction, and Doc demonstrates that she's clearly found her groove in the genre. The premise of the book is at once both iconic and imaginative, treating the beginnings of friendship between Doc Holliday and the Earp clan several years before all the fuss at the O.K. Corral. These are not hardened lawmen, but struggling young men with simple dreams of financial stability and good health. Mark Bramhall does an impeccable job with the voice work, taking on these enormously well known characters and adding a sensitive depth of uncertainty. After all, at this moment in history, John Henry Holliday is just a dentist who plays a bit of poker, and Wyatt Earp is merely a part-time officer of the peace who is hoping to breed racehorses. They are thrown together out of concern for a mutual acquaintance, John Horse Sanders, a mixed-race man who died in a fire but who may have been murdered before the fire got started.

It's a straightforward Western mystery with a surprising amount of intricate narration. Mark Bramhall is a prize when it comes to character acting, so he handles the various Southern accents, from Georgia to Texas to Kansas, without even breaking a sweat. But everyone knows Doc Holliday died of consumption at a young age. Doc's dialogue is riddled with hacking, coughing, spluttering and spitting. Bramhall manages to insert all of these credibly, yet without disrupting the flow of the story or ruining Doc's many profound punch lines. It's particularly a treat to hear him voicing Doc's fiery gypsy whore, Kate. Switching between Western and Hungarian accents seems difficult enough, but Kate is also fluent in a number of other languages, and Bramhall delivers the French and Latin with an easy grace. Russell's slow and steady narrative is bound to delight, but as with all good Westerns, it's the drawling sound of the place that will make it truly enchanting. Megan Volpert

Publisher's summary

The year is 1878, peak of the Texas cattle trade. The place is Dodge City, Kansas, a saloon-filled cow town jammed with liquored-up adolescent cowboys and young Irish hookers. Violence is random and routine, but when the burned body of a mixed-blood boy named Johnnie Sanders is discovered, his death shocks a part-time policeman named Wyatt Earp. And it is a matter of strangely personal importance to Doc Holliday, the frail 26-year-old dentist who has just opened an office at No. 24, Dodge House.

Beautifully educated, born to the life of a Southern gentleman, Dr. John Henry Holliday is given an awful choice at the age of 22: die within months in Atlanta or leave everyone and everything he loves in the hope that the dry air and sunshine of the West will restore him to health. Young, scared, lonely, and sick, he arrives on the rawest edge of the Texas frontier just as an economic crash wrecks the dreams of a nation. Soon, with few alternatives open to him, Doc Holliday is gambling professionally; he is also living with Mária Katarina Harony, a high-strung Hungarian whore with dazzling turquoise eyes, who can quote Latin classics right back at him. Kate makes it her business to find Doc the high-stakes poker games that will support them both in high style. It is Kate who insists that the couple travel to Dodge City, because “That’s where the money is.”

And that is where the unlikely friendship of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp really begins - before Wyatt Earp is the prototype of the square-jawed, fearless lawman; before Doc Holliday is the quintessential frontier gambler; before the gunfight at the O.K. Corral links their names forever in American frontier mythology - when neither man wanted fame or deserved notoriety.

Authentic, moving, and witty, Mary Doria Russell’s fifth novel redefines these two towering figures of the American West and brings to life an extraordinary cast of historical characters, including Holliday’s unforgettable companion, Kate. First and last, however, Doc is John Henry Holliday’s story, written with compassion, humor, and respect by one of our greatest contemporary storytellers.

©2011 Mary Doria Russell (P)2011 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Fact and mythmaking converge as Russell creates a Dodge City filled with nuggets of surprising history, a city so alive readers can smell the sawdust and hear the tinkling of saloon pianos....Filled with action and humor yet philosophically rich and deeply moving - a magnificent read." ( Kirkus)

What listeners say about Doc

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Great writing and narration

We are listening to "Doc" and the combination of great writing and a gifted narrator equals an amazing experience. This book is an example of how a well written book can be elevated to heights that cannot be reached by just reading the written word. Congratulations to the author for having such elite writing skills and to the narrator and his perfect voice. Thank you.

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30 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

WONDERFUL!

I loved this book! I'm a big fan of "LONESOME DOVE" and I enjoyed this one just as much. This book is very different, but still, a western. A GOOD western is a rare thing! This is a good one.

The narrator is so good I have been searching for other books he's done. He is a new find too!

5 stars for the book and the narrator.

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24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent Narration, Excellent Story

Mary Doria Russell does it again with another detailed absorbing tale. The narration was excellent and really brought the story to life.

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18 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • S.
  • 06-04-11

Outstanding -

This is a fantastic audio book - the writing is wonderful and the performanc makes it all the better.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Tombstone Prequel

Western lore has made Doc Holliday an important but secondary figure to Wyatt Earp in the narrow context of a single 30-second gun battle. Readers looking for a shoot-‘em-up retelling of the OK Corral need to look elsewhere. The action takes place almost exclusively in Dodge City before any of the principles ever move to Tombstone for that nearly mythological encounter.

In the hands of author Russell, Doc is a tragic but dashing hero of his own story - generous, humorous, ironic and proud. This wonderful character study explores the substance behind the dime store novel legends, fleshing out the cardboard heroes into wonderfully flawed human beings of depth and dimension. By taking the time to explain the back stories of all the major players, historical and psychological context make sense of the complicated personalities of Doc, Kate and the Earps, clarifying their interconnected relationships. This is historic fiction at its best – atmospherically descriptive, transporting the reader into time and place with her characters.

Mark Bramhall is one of my favorite readers, which is how I came upon this book. In the most ambitious project I have heard from him, he successfully tackles multiple accents, (Southern, Texan, Gypsy, German, Irish) and languages (French, German and Latin) with astonishing ease. Most eloquently, he gives Doc his beautifully melodic Georgia drawl, punctuated by spasms of consumptive coughing and weary breathlessness, conveying both the burden of his disease and the bravery of the fight against it. This is a performance that any author would wish for to bring life to a well written story.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Doc

I have always admired Mary Doria Russell's writing and was not disappointed with this latest story of Doc. She brings a depth of character to Doc from her imagination and paints pictures with words that make you able to visualize the place, time and character of the people in Doc's life. The reader Mark Bramhall, makes the story come alive. His ability to play the part of each of the characters is very good. I will pay attention to other books he reads. It is a turn-off to have a reader that sounds false when portraying, for instance, females. Mr. Bramhall is believable and non-offending.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful

This is a great story -- so well written, all the characters are rich, and the weaving of the story is absolutely enchanting. As wonderful as that is the narrator's skill and talent makes it breathtaking. I've listened to this book several times and am more impressed with the narrator's talent each time.
I will look for this author and especially look for this narrator in the future.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Gotta Love it!

This was so much more than just GREAT, a thoroughly readable, (OK, listenable,) book that adhered to the verifiable historical facts, even when those facts put our hero in a not so heroic light...Excellent!

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Doc

Although I'm not a western fan this author (and narrator) have brought the characters to life so well that I truly believe I know and like them. Hate to have it end but want to solve the mystery.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

GREAT Characters, but so Needlessly BORING!!

Most of the reviews on here point out how deep and well fleshed-out the characters are in this book. They're right. The characters are AMAZING. If all you want is a period piece with interesting Western characters and nothing more, then this is your book. As for the story.... NOTHING HAPPENS! Well, things happen, but nothing that's all that entertaining. Some people get sick... some people play the piano well... some people drink and play cards.... and I fall asleep! Are you serious? How do you take two iconic characters like Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, and manage to make them THIS BORING?? Somehow, it was possible, because Russell did it.

Narrator is very good.

Bottom line, if you like Old West stories about places like Dodge City, and you don't mind if the story truly goes nowhere, then this is for you. As a pure character piece, this book is wonderful. However, I need a great story in order to enjoy a period piece like this.

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10 people found this helpful