Afterword: My Father, The Doctor (by William Eric Williams)
Critical analysis
“In the collection, the modernist poet…turns toward the rhythms of his own daily life as a doctor in small town New Jersey, a profession the poet occupied until his death in 1963. Williams’ practice as a doctor in Rutherford was not just a day job, but also a way by which he found words to express modern American life in poetry and prose...The Doctors Stories move like a surgeon: It makes you uncomfortable and looks at you naked. Then, it changes you...” — Literary critic Claudia Ross in Surgical Prose: On William Carlos Williams' "The Doctor Stories" in Cleveland Review of Books (2018)[5]
Writing in The New York Times, poet and literary critic Harvey Shapiro comments on how the theme of the stories emerges directly from their composition:
Almost all the stories have a simple form. They begin with a telephone call for the doctor or the doctor entering the house of the sick. The concentration is on the action. The dialogue is given without commentary or quotation marks. The story moves rapidly. As the people disclose themselves to the doctor, the diagnosis is made and the story abruptly ends. But hidden in that process is a revelation for the doctor and the reader: Through coming to see others clearly, he comes to see himself.[6]
Gish, Robert F. 1989. William Carlos Williams: A Study of the Short Fiction. Twayne Publishers, Boston, Massassachusetts. G. K. Hall & Co.Gordon Weaver, General Editor. ISBN0-8057-8307-5
