Review: Down through the ages . . .
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 24, 2013
Rob J Cole is the only name you need to know.  The first is a 1000 AD healer and adventurer, larger than life, with a gift for sensing the vitality of any person who joins hands with him.  His search for knowledge of healing and his destiny take him from London through Europe to Constantinople and then on through the mid-eastern countries till he studies medicine, as good as it could get back then, at a most famous hospital. The obstacles he faces are daunting and innumerable, making for great suspense throughout.  Finally he makes his way back to his wife's holding in Scotland and practices medicine happily for the rest of his days.  In Shaman, we visit Cole's descendant in 1800's in the midwest of the United States just prior to, during, and after the Civil War.  Shaman does not have the adventures of the first Rob J, but he still has 'the gift' and the tale is much more 'realistic' but really less interesting than The Physician.  Last, Matters of Choice is the story of RJ, a doctor in the 2000's beginning in Boston and ending in the rural hill country of New England, where the latest descendant of the original Rob J pursues her own destiny and value in becoming a family physician in a small community instead of the celebrated specialist she had set out to become in her life.  Noah Gordon handles the history and geography that underly his stories with ease, and the terrific diversity of cultures his story moves within never obscure the clarity of his characters lives and motives.  These are united at a much deeper level than just the family name and are themselves a 'gift' of the highest order for his readers.