The medical profession is an odd bird: intimately engaged with human life at its most joyful and most sorrowful and most messy — and also, somehow, always holding itself apart. From William Carlos Williams to Henry Marsh, books by doctors betray that carefully guarded distance.

This week, The Seattle Review of Books is sponsored by R. T. Lawrence, who writes a different kind of doctor book. What we love about the Anchorage physician's novels is that they close the gap between doctors and the rest of humanity. Lawrence's second novel, House of Jesus, follows a jaded surgeon to Haiti, just after the 2010 earthquake. Seattle surgeon Phillip Scott (we also love that Seattle setting!) has a classic doctor-knows-best attitude, until he encounters human suffering on a very different scale.

Check out the first chapter from Lawrence's book, which he's generously sharing on our sponsor feature page this week only — and we guarantee you'll be pulled in..

You're part of the best book city in the world, and we want everyone to know who you are. Grab one of the last dates in June and July and put your book, event, retreat, or class in front of our readers. We'd love to see you in this space.