When lives are dominated by hunger, what becomes of love? When assaulted by daily acts of violence and untimely death, what happens to trust? Set in the lands of Northeast Brazil, this is an account of the everyday experience of scarcity, sickness and death that centres on the lives of the women and children of a hillside "favela". Bringing her readers to the impoverished slopes above the modern plantation town of Bom Jesus de Mata, where she has worked on and off for 25 years, the author follows three generations of shantytown women as they struggle to survive through hard work, cunning and triage. It is a story of class relations told at the most basic level of bodies, emotions, desires and needs. Most disturbing - and controversial - is her finding that mother love, as conventionally understood, is something of a bourgeois myth, a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as these women cannot, that their infants will live. The author also wrote "Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland".

在普林斯顿大学附属医院内，坐镇一位大名鼎鼎的内科医师——格雷戈·豪斯（休·劳瑞 Hugh Laurie 饰），他穿着邋遢随便，手拄拐杖，刚愎自用，锋芒毕露，全然没有人们印象中那类谦和严谨的专业医师的影子。可是在这副令人咋舌的外表之下，却藏着令同行和病患佩服得五体投地的高超医术和丰富学识。豪斯医生治病的手法也独树一帜，他不当面问诊，也绝对不相信病患的道白感受，而完全凭借自己卓越的学识和高超的推理能力解决了诸多疑难杂症。
在神经科医师泰勒·埃瑞克·弗曼（奥尔马·伊普斯 Omar Epps 饰）、免疫学专家阿丽森·卡梅隆（珍妮弗·莫里森 Jennifer Morrison 饰）、心脏与急诊科医师罗伯特·蔡斯（杰西·斯宾塞 Jesse Spencer 饰）的协助下，豪斯团队绽放出耀眼夺目的光芒，也创造了一个又一个医学奇迹……