Dirty Work
  • Published: 6 June 2013
  • ISBN: 9781448163731
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 192

Dirty Work

Formats & editions
EBook
6 Jun 2013
Paperback
15 Jun 2014
Buy from…
Amazon Apple Books Google Play Kobo Booktopia eBooks.com

A powerful, gripping novel that confronts one of the great contemporary taboos head-on. By the author of the brilliant Direct Red.

Winner of the McKitterick Prize

Two women in a room.

‘Courageous’ Rachel Cusk, Guardian

One is dying.

‘Gripping’ Observer

The other just sits back and watches.

‘Necessary’ Independent

For both, there is everything to lose.

Surgeons are meant to save lives, but Nancy is a special kind of surgeon. When she makes a mistake in the operating theatre she is summoned to explain herself to a tribunal and is forced to consider what it means to be a doctor who has killed as well as cured. And to realise that her own redemption can only come through telling a tale that nobody wants to hear.

Gabriel Weston, author of the acclaimed Direct Red: A Surgeon’s Story, winner of the 2010 PEN/Ackerley Prize, has written an extraordinarily moving and powerful novel.
  • Published: 6 June 2013
  • ISBN: 9781448163731
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 192
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Gabriel Weston

Gabriel Weston was born in 1970. She went to Edinburgh University to read English and from there to medical school in London. She graduated as a doctor in 2000 and became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 2003. She now works as a part-time ENT surgeon. She lives in London with her husband and two children. Her debut, Direct Red, was a Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller.

portrait photo of Gabriel Weston

Also by Gabriel Weston

Direct Red
See all

Praise for Dirty Work

A lot of novels are called "brave", and they aren’t. This one is.

Lionel Shriver

Weston excels at writing about medicine precisely…but with great subtlety of tone that allows readers to appreciate the human faultlines that lie beneath conventional portraits of doctoring.

Vivienne Parry, The Times

Few writers capture the mentality of surgery as incisively as Ms Weston has managed to. Her experiences in hospitals are palpable on the page.

Economist

Weston has an unwavering passion for the truth as well as the courage to tell it.

Ian Thomson, Sunday Telegraph (Seven)

Highly intense… Impressive stuff.

Doug Johnstone, Big Issue

Extremely powerful.

The Skinny

Extraordinarily powerful.

Reading Matters

An important and thought-provoking book.

Farmlane Books

Will certainly raise questions for further thought by the reader even after putting the book down.

We Love This Book

Intense.

Victoria Burt, UK Regional Press Syndication

The subject matter is brave and necessary… Weston is a superb writer of lucid and evocative prose… This is not a dark book so much as a deeply thoughtful one. I would make it obligatory for the medical curriculum.

Leyla Senai, Independent

Gripping, well-researched and elegantly written – but definitely not for the squeamish.

Rosamund Urwin, Evening Standard

Scalpel-sharp.

Ian Thomson, Observer

Weston’s fast-paced novel raises questions of integrity, morality and medical ethics.

List

A powerful piece of writing.

UK Press Syndication

A brilliantly intense, thought-provoking story

Stylist

Gripping, well-researched and elegantly written

Rosamund Urwin, Evening Standard, Books of the Year

This courageous and interesting author is that unusual thing, a contemporary moralist

Rachel Cusk, Guardian

Bold, brave, and uncomfortable… it's a gripping read

Observer

The subject matter is brave, the moral perspective complex, the writing vivid

Lionel Shriver, Mail on Sunday

Weston is a superb writer of lucid and evocative prose… This is not a dark book so much as a deeply thoughtful one

Independent

Dirty Work is a fascinating, thought-provoking and at times deeply troubling tale. Weston presents a balanced and brutally honest portrayal of a difficult theme.

Ray Clarke, ENT & Audiology News

Visceral and moving.

William Leith, Evening Standard