The Doctor’s Bag
BACK COVER DESCRIPTION
The Doctor’s Bag is a heartwarming sentimental journey through the many paths a family will travel together as they experience love, comfort, joy, trials, separations, and finally reconciliation.
The Doctor’s Bag tells the story of Thomas Sterling and his son, Robert, as they try to understand the other’s motives and actions, through the years. From early childhood to young adult hood, each chapter deals with a significant event, that will define both Robert’s and his father’s personalities.
The bond both father and son have is to the past: a doctor’s bag, which once contained the items to heal, but over the years has also been the touchstone for bitter arguments, misunderstandings, and resentments.
Seen through the eyes of both Thomas and Robert, The Doctor’s Bag is a simple inspirational message of love, hope and understanding. A truly original story that will touch the reader’s heart for years to come.
BEHIND THE STORY
“THE DOCTOR’S BAG”
A Heartwarming, Short Story of Family Bond.
Book readers are often the hardest to buy for due to the overwhelming amount of new releases each year. This year however, the cure for your book buying blues can be found within The Doctor’s Bag – A Sentimental Journey, a new inspirational story from Canadian author John Schlarbaum.
Written several years ago as a special Father’s Day present, this fictional story follows the ever changing relationship between a father and son, from the boy’s adolescence to the age of twenty. The bond between them is an old weathered doctor’s bag, which used to belong to the boy’s grandfather. In the opening chapter the father promises his young four-year-old son that if he can carry the bag to his room, it would be his. Over the next several years this simple promise lays the groundwork for a somewhat turbulent upbringing for both of the main characters.
What makes this tale unique is the narrative technique Schlarbaum uses to convey the highs and lows of the parent-child relationship.
“Each chapter is like a snapshot that deals with one event, on one day, during a different year in the boy’s life at the ages of 4, 7, 9, 16 and finally as a young man of 20. When people look back on their lives, it’s single events over the years that have the most impact on their relationships with family or friends. That’s the case with this story – it’s the individual encounters between Thomas and his son, which affect both of their lives.”
As a private investigator, and a former television writer and interviewer, Schlarbaum has sat down with many people to talk about their lives. But it was a discussion with his father one day that started the literary wheels into motion.
The idea for such a story came after Schlarbaum interviewed his father on the occasion of the elder’s 75th birthday. During the conversation many aspects of the writer’s father’s life were revealed for the first time, as specific memories and events were recalled that had personal meaning decades later. “My father also talked about tiny mementos he had and still cherished, like a baseball pin he’d received in his youth. I realized these same items would become family heirlooms, and this thought helped me write the last chapter, when the father makes a final attempt to keep the promise he’s made his son.”
Originally intended primarily as a gift fathers and sons could exchange, since its publication many female readers, from late teens to grandmothers, have written favourable reviews about the book, many saying they were moved to tears at the story’s sentimental conclusion.
“Just prior to publication, a friend of mine called me up and convinced me that this type of story would appeal to women as well. When I asked why she said, ‘Because it’s not about a father and son relationship, it’s about a parent’s love for their child. Women readers love books about sentimental journeys.’”
“Regardless of the gender of the reader, ultimately the story is about a promise made, a promise kept and that it’s never to late to tell someone you love them.”
Written with both a child and parent’s sensibilities and emotions in mind, The Doctor’s Bag is guaranteed to stir the hearts and minds of all readers.
“It’s very gratifying to discover that this simple inspirational story I wrote for my father eleven years ago, is now affecting others with its message of hope, love and understanding. My Dad is now 86 and thrilled our story is being shared like this.”
THE DOCTOR’S BAG is released by Scanner Publishing of Windsor, Ontario, and can be purchased online at www.scannerpublishing.com and also several bookstores in Southwestern Ontario, listed on the website.
