Doctor Zay
Published in 1882 and long out of print, this novel hinges on a reversal of stereotypical gender roles: in their 20s, the eponymous female Dr. Z. A. Lloyd is a disciplined medical practitioner in Maine, devoted to her patients, and Waldo Yorke is a cultured, but emotionally immature Boston lawyer, recovering from a near-fatal accident, who falls in love with Dr. Zay, his attending physician. Most of the novel, told mainly from Yorke's point of view, recounts in detail his unrequited love for the maddeningly efficient doctor. In bits and pieces she explains her predicament as a female professional: that she would like marriage, but that she is a "new kind of woman" and a happy marriage for "such a woman demands a new type of man." Moreover, she says she has known of only three "real" marriages and that she "will not have any happiness that is not the most perfect this world can give me." Surprisingly, Yorke convinces both himself and Dr. Zay that he can support her in her career, and the resolution of the novel has a pat, discomfiting ring. Sartisky, executive director of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, provides an illuminating essay that places Phelps's work and themes in historical perspective.Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.