i'm still trying to wrap my head around this book - there's a sense of danger (real or imagined) throughout the story; some of it 'light' - adultery, escaping a locked house, a collision with a moose - and some very dark - suicide, rape, and murder. figures of authority abandon their code of conduct - but not always with a negative result. medical students are elbow deep in the gore of anatomy and dissection, but are also elbow deep in the vulnerability of love and poetry