Liese Schwarz, MD ’92, brought out her third book, What Could Be Saved, from Atria Books (Simon&Schuster) on January 12, 2021. The novel is about an expatriate family in Bangkok in 1972 whose son goes missing, and the man who makes contact decades later claiming to be the vanished boy. The book was chosen as an Indie Next pick and received a starred review at Publisher’s Weekly that noted, “Superb . . . Schwarz is a remarkable storyteller. . . [This] stellar work is riveting.” The book is available in print and audio in the US and Canada, will be available February 2, 2021 in Australia/NZ, and a Dutch translation is in process.

Schwarz retired from emergency medicine practice before bringing out her previous novel, The Possible World, in 2018. That book has an EM doctor character in it, and Schwarz says she found the medicine scenes quite difficult to write, as a true reproduction of the reality of a busy ED would be frank chaos to a reader. It was an interesting challenge to give the sense of a busy shift without including overwhelming detail.

She loves to hear from classmates and other ‘Hoos! She can be contacted via the email option on her website. She’s @lieseschwarzwriter on Instagram, @LieseDoc on twitter, and Liese O’Halloran Schwarz on Facebook.

“Let’s hope for an end to this pandemic soon — until then, stay safe!”