In America during the decade following World War II, a woman’s place was in the home, birth control was haphazard, abortion was illegal, rock ‘n roll had yet to be born, women and African-Americans were largely absent from the medical and legal professions, and the dictates of government and religion were mainly unquestioned. And then, John F. Kennedy was assassinated and everything changed. Within a few years, the world witnessed widespread political ferment. For one woman, Barbara H. Roberts, MD, the second wave of feminism and the peace movement transformed her from a devout Catholic wife and mother into an atheist, outspoken pro-choice and anti-war activist.

The Doctor Broad: A Mafia Love Story [Heliotrope Books, September 3, 2019] is Roberts’ life story, a tale that rivals anything scripted in Hollywood. There are people in the know who say that she caused the downfall of the New England Mafia. She did this, not by killing someone, or sending someone to jail, but by keeping someone alive, and out of prison, for about a year too long. During this time, Roberts navigated life in two separate worlds. In the “straight” world, she was a single mother of three, the first woman to practice adult cardiology in Rhode Island, and an active feminist. In the other world she was the physician whose testimony prevented Raymond L. S. Patriarca, the head of the New England Mafia, from having to go to trial, and the secret lover of the alleged #3 man in the New England Mafia, Louis “Baby Shanks” Manocchio.

“I always wanted to stand up for the underdog and in this situation, Raymond was the underdog,” says Roberts. “The night I agreed to become his cardiologist, I entered a looking-glass world, a parallel universe where nothing was quite as it seemed. I, a clueless Alice in an underworld Wonderland, was lucky to escape with my head. I never feared for my life, but I paid a price. My decisions negatively impacted my children and my reputation. It has been difficult, but I have forgiven myself.”

In The Doctor Broad, we find Roberts meeting Patriarca when he is in his early 70’s and suffering poor health. A long-time diabetic, he has known heart disease and has recently undergone a toe amputation when he is arrested on capital charges relating to an old murder, and taken to the Rhode Island State Police Barracks in Scituate. Roberts takes him on as a patient that night, and her world is forever changed. Her testimony in various courts that he is too sick to stand trial earns her the enmity of police, FBI agents, the media and some of her fellow physicians.

But the care of Patriarca is not the only stressor in her life. The father of her youngest child is suing her in Family Court for common law divorce, palimony, and custody of their young daughter on the grounds that she is an unfit mother. Her oldest daughter suffers a nervous breakdown. She is fighting a trumped-up felony charge of breaking and entering. And less than a year after becoming Patriarca’s physician, she begins a clandestine affair with Louis Manocchio, who will later be convicted of accessory and conspiracy to murder.

This memoir traces Roberts’ life story as she walks a path that is rich in love and laughter, tears and heartache, labor and study. It is the story of a woman born into one world who comes of age in another; who expects to live one life but finds herself ad-libbing something very different; who faces challenges undreamt of by her mother, while providing a new paradigm for her daughters. Roberts’ commitment to feminism and medicine leads her into unexpected byways as she faces moral dilemmas she never envisioned, but two things of the girl she once was remain: a love of children and a desire to heal.

The Doctor Broad explores themes including:

• Growing up in an alcoholic family
• Growing up in a Catholic family and leaving the Church as a young adult
• The anti-Vietnam War Movement and the Women’s Movement
• Surviving two violent sexual assaults
• Medical school and post-graduate training when women were still a rarity
• Being a trail-blazing physician
• Divorce and custody battles
• Being a “mob doctor” and a “mob mistress”
• Having a loved one in prison
• Surviving controversy, hardships and heartbreak
• Facing public scrutiny from the government and the media
• Sexual liberation

 

About the Author:

Barbara Hudson Roberts, MD was the first female adult cardiologist in the state of Rhode Island. She graduated from Barnard College and Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. As a resident at Yale New Haven Hospital, she became active in the pro-choice movement, before Roe v Wade made abortion legal. She helped found the Women’s National Abortion Action Coalition (WONAAC) and was the keynote speaker at the first national pro-choice demonstration in Washington DC in November 1971. She also was active in the anti-Vietnam War movement, and spoke at the last mass anti-war demonstration on the grounds of the Washington Monument on the day of Nixon’s inauguration in 1973. She was a staff physician at Planned Parenthood for many years, and continues on the voluntary faculty at Brown where she is an Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine.

Connect with Barbara Roberts on Facebook @barbara.roberts.14, Instagram @bhrdoc, Twitter @BarbaraHRoberts and visit www.thedoctorbroad.com.

The Doctor Broad: A Mafia Love Story releases on September 3, 2019.