I Knew a Woman

"In this book, a nurse practitioner who is also a successful poet uses her unique combination of skills to write about the world of women's heath in an entirely new way. Drawing on the dramatic stories of the women she cares for and the insights she has gained in twenty-five years of professional experience, Cortney Davis weaves a tale in which women will find echoes of their own emotional journeys and their own struggles with the capricious female body. Over the course of one year at the clinic where she works, four women's stories unfold in tandem with the author's. Lila - young, homeless, pregnant - challenges Davis's skills and her patience. Eleanor, swept along the course of a perplexing illness, becomes the author's friend as Davis is suddenly confronted with health problems of her own. Joanna, a young woman haunted by memories that are interfering - physically - with her current relationship, presents another puzzle to be solved. And Davis's least-favorite patient - fast-talking, drug-addicted Renee - grows to become the patient Davis most admires."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.