Title: The General Hospital

Author: Anne Buist and Graeme Simsion

Publisher: Hatchette 2026; RRP: $34.99

Review by: Heather Whitford Roche, Ballarat Writers Inc. Book Review Group

Professor Anne Buist and Dr Graeme Simsion are no strangers to the writing world. Anne Buist, a psychiatrist and chair of Women’s Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, has written five psychological novels as well as co-writing with her husband Graeme the Menzies Mental Health series: The Glass House, The Oasis, and now The General Hospital.  

Graeme Simsion authored the international best seller The Rosie Project and its two sequels. The series was produced in forty languages and sold seven million copies worldwide. Currently a film is being developed with Sony Pictures.

Having read the two earlier novels in this series, I enjoyed this third book the most. The story is largely driven from a psychiatry perspective. Hannah, a trainee psychiatrist, is the main character and the story moves seamlessly between her home, family and her hospital patients. Hannah grew up in a country town with parents who were foster carers for fifty-three children. The consequences of this lifestyle are still affecting the family dynamics today.

Hannah is doing her psychiatry traineeship at the same hospital as she did her internship but this time her focus is on her patients’ mental health, not so much medical conditions, although Hannah discovers the two are linked more than she might have thought.

Her personal life changes when she moves in with a fellow trainee, and his involvement with her family raises questions for Hannah about their ongoing relationship.

Buist and Simsion discuss The General Hospital

@ The Women’s Weekly book club

Some of her patients include Christina, who plans to sue the hospital, and Hannah’s ex-boyfriend. Max, another patient is a larger-than-life character with bi-polar and kidney disease who creates chaos whenever admitted. His journey is real, sad and humorous. And then there is Ishani, a self-inflicted burns patient with a complicated marriage. Hannah digs deeper into Ishani’s circumstances to discover that all is not as it seems. Hospital dynamics and the pecking order in relation to disciplines and status are cleverly played out by Buist and Simsion in this book.  

The General Hospital is a page-turner and easy to read. Buist and Simsion have pulled together a novel that is entertaining, has meaning in today’s world and provides insight into the private and psychological lives of people faced with personal and psychiatric concerns.

It also cleverly places the professionals who work within psychiatry under the spotlight. Psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists in general are ordinary people who have their own issues and complications; the book integrates this notion very well.

Review copy provided by the publisher