Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink

Hurricane Katrina occurred when I was pretty young. My hometown in the Southern United States was lightly affected by the hurricane, but the effects of Hurricane Ivan the year prior were much worse where I lived. I vividly remember taking my dog out during the storm and feeling the wind switch directions over and over, the rain bombarding me from all sides. A while later the eye of the storm seemed to pass over my home, bringing an hour or two of clear blue skies before the bad weather returned.

The personal impact of Ivan in my childhood is a likely explanation for why my memories of Katrina are so fragmentary. I knew that the events were a national tragedy, but I didn’t understand exactly what transpired or what the residents of New Orleans lived through during and after the storm. Ms. Sheri Fink’s Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital fills that mental gap, describing the crisis in vivid detail through the experiences of patients and staff at a single medical facility.

Some readers may already be familiar with the happenings at Memorial Medical Center (now called Oschner Baptist Medical Center and formerly known as Southern Baptist Hospital). The hospital became the center of a national controversy late in 2005 after allegations arose that healthcare staff had participated in mercy killings during Hurricane Katrina. A doctor and two nurses were charged with multiple counts of second-degree murder stemming from their conduct during the storm, though a grand jury later declined to indict any healthcare professionals.

Five Days at Memorial does not push any viewpoints regarding the healthcare professionals’ guilt or innocence, serving instead as a definitive account of events, with any contradictions between individual parties noted without comment. The reader is left to formulate his/her own opinion on whether what happened is morally right or wrong. What struck me the most, personally, was the cascade of mistakes and miscommunications which piled on top of one another to cause a disaster of the scale which is depicted. Would anything have been different if the medical staff had allowed rescue helicopters to land on their helipad at night? What if rescuers had been fully briefed on the existence of a separately owned, long-term acute care unit within the hospital?

As a former caregiver of a family member with advanced dementia, I found that my position changed multiple times as I read. I would never want my family member to be euthanized without consent. On the other hand, I also would not want him to be trapped in a flooded neighborhood for days, in a building with no electricity or air conditioning and dwindling stocks of medical supplies, medicine, and even food. I think it is difficult to judge the staff’s decision making processes without having experienced the conditions oneself.

I recommend Five Days at Memorial to readers interested in the history of Hurricane Katrina, as well as those interested in medical ethics. It has certainly provided me with a lot of food for thought.

The Collected Schizophrenias by Esme Weijun Wang

I was exposed to Esme Weijun Wang earlier this year when I read her essay “I’ve Been Committed to a Psych Ward Three Times – And It Never Helped” on Buzzfeed News. The article is excerpted from her first publication of nonfiction essays, entitled The Collected Schizophrenias and published in February 2019. Reading the Buzzfeed article and learning more about Ms. Wang’s life story in the process, I thought to myself, “I have to purchase this book immediately.”

As the title of her nonfiction essay collection suggests, Ms. Wang is diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and a host of other serious mental illnesses. She deals with symptoms both physical and psychological in the course of her illnesses, running the gamut from aches and pains to delusions that she is a corpse (as strange as it may sound, this delusion is actually well-documented in medical literature).

Prior to the onset of illness in her early adulthood, Ms. Wang attended Yale and worked as a fashion blogger. A major theme of the essays is her struggle to accept a “new normal,” a lot in life which measures success by different goal posts than the ones she knew before. The essays in The Collected Schizophrenias skillfully juxtapose the disparity between the author’s past and present. She maintains the voice of a skilled writer regardless of the inherent illogic of her subject matter, chronicling her descent into severe illness and subsequent treatment.

While not all readers will have personally struggled with mental illness, many will find Ms. Wang’s journey of personal growth in times of hardship to be relatable. Furthermore, the essays clearly demonstrate that while the author is afflicted by mental illness, she is more than a collection of symptoms; she is a person with memories, characteristics, preferences, and aspirations. I would suggest that the collection is an important contribution to the cause of destigmatizing mental illness and recommend it wholeheartedly as a result.

A Paris Year: My Day-to-Day Adventures in the Most Romantic City in the World by Janice MacLeod

If I remember correctly, A Paris Year: My Day-to-Day Adventures in the Most Romantic City in the World was recommended to me by Amazon.com while I was browsing travelogues. I eventually received the book as a gift from my mother-in-law back in 2017, although I only had the opportunity to read it this month during a medical leave of absence from my job.

Ms. Janice MacLeod is an Etsy artist who sells handwritten letters (most with accompanying watercolors) depicting her daily life in Paris, France. A Paris Year is a bit different from my usual fare as a result, a combination art book and memoir which I finished reading in an afternoon. The work is presented in the form of a diary, with approximately one entry per day over the course of a year. Ms. MacLeod ornaments the entries with calligraphy, art, and photographs to present a lovely impression of the people, places, and sights of the city.

I would recommend A Paris Year as a coffee-table book or a quick vacation read. There is no “plot” of which to speak, but the work nonetheless contains plenty of charm, complemented by a sense of place that makes it well worth the read.

The Run of His Life: The People vs. O.J. Simpson by Jeffrey Toobin

I purchased The Run of His Life: The People vs. O.J. Simpson back in 2016, around the same time that the TV show based on the book premiered on FX. Although I was interested in seeing the TV show, I typically make an effort to read the source material prior to viewing any derivative adaptations. (This also explains why I never watched Game of Thrones, as I hoped to wait until the entire series of novels was released.) In the intervening years I listened to an analysis of the case on the podcast Real Crime Profile, further piquing my interest. Finishing my graduate studies finally afforded me the opportunity to return to the book, and I hope to watch the TV show before too much longer.

The Run of His Life is a nonfiction account of the murders of Ms. Nicole Brown Simpson and Mr. Ronald Goldman, and the subsequent criminal trial of Mr. Orenthal James “O.J.” Simpson, Nicole’s ex-husband. Mr. Jeffrey Toobin wrote the book contemporaneous to the trial, compiling notes and interviews via his work with The New Yorker magazine. Mr. Toobin’s proximity to the principal players for the duration of the case is clear, as (for example) he was the first journalist to report on the defense’s strategy of employing the so-called “race card.” This journalistic viewpoint translates to an intimate experience for readers of the book that followed.

As I read The Run of His Life, I could not help but think that Mr. Simpson’s acquittal stemmed from “death by a thousand cuts” – in other words, a series of oversights/errors that while innocuous alone, proved devastating when combined together. For example, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office conducted research into the viewpoints of potential jurors prior to the trial. Deputy District Attorney Ms. Marcia Clark learned that African American jurors, especially women, tended to sympathize with Mr. Simpson and deride Ms. Simpson as a lowlife. Instead of capitalizing on this acquired knowledge during jury selection, Ms. Clark operated in court according to her own intuition. A majority of jurors turned out to be African American women, many of whom responded to the evidence just as the preliminary research had suggested.

My one criticism of the work is that although Toobin dedicated some pages to Mr. and Ms. Simpson’s abusive marriage, this underlying motive seemed underrepresented compared to discussion of media coverage and legal antics. Ms. Laura Richards, a criminal behavioral analyst specializing in stalking behavior, stated on the Real Crime Profile podcast that the attention endlessly paid to Mr. Simpson detracted attention from Ms. Simpson and Mr. Goldman, the actual victims of homicide. I tend to agree with Ms. Richards’ assessment of the case, and even Toobin himself makes mention of how the victims’ murders “got lost” in the public consciousness compared to Mr. Simpson himself.

Despite this critique, I recognize that the work provides an authoritative, generally impartial account of the criminal trial of Mr. Simpson, including extensive insight into the states of mind of both the prosecution and defense teams. I would recommend the book to any reader interested in learning more about the case and its impact on the American psyche.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs

Hello readers! I am happy to report that I concluded my graduate studies this month (May 2019), and with that goal achieved, I should have much more time to pursue pastimes like reading. I started by finishing a book which I began in late 2018, Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

I purchased this book months ago; if I am not mistaken, I bought it the same day as Deep South by Paul Theroux, another book I have reviewed on this blog. (I must have been on a nonfiction purchasing spree at the time.) The Death and Life of Great American Cities marked a bit of a departure for me in multiple ways, as I had never read a work on urban planning before, nor had I heard of Ms. Jacobs. My understanding is that though she was a journalist by trade, Ms. Jacobs engaged in urban activism in response to development efforts in her New York City neighborhood. Her own urban planning ideology was outlined in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a work which introduced such concepts of modern development as “social capital” (later expanded upon in Robert D. Putnam’s Bowling Alone).

Ms. Jacobs’ central thesis is that the urban planning efforts of her time (the 1950s and early 1960s) failed to incorporate the wishes of residents. The results of large-scale urban development, typified by the construction of “projects,” often occurred in opposition to local wishes and thus failed to achieve developmental objectives (such as increased safety). The author outlines a series of principles that (in her view) should guide modern urban planning efforts. The construction / preservation of areas with mixed zoning rates first among her guidelines, as Ms. Jacobs believed that neighborhood safety depended upon an area’s usage continuing on all days and at all hours. She extensively draws upon examples found in New York City and other American cities (such as Boston and Chicago) to bolster her claims.

I live in a city of 200,000 residents, and it was no struggle to apply Ms. Jacobs’ principles to the development efforts where I myself live. For example, the downtown area in my city is currently being revitalized with mixed zoning, placing residential, government buildings, private companies, hotels, and restaurants within the same concentrated location. The area of town with mixed zoning is the liveliest in the city, and I am told that it is much safer to walk there at night than it was fifteen years ago. Ms. Jacobs’ other ideas are likewise confirmed when I look around me.

The book is a dense / technical read with extensive discussion of the history of urban planning in the United States, more of a monograph than a work of so-called “popular nonfiction.” The book shows its age at times, at one point devoting a whole chapter to hypotheses about the fate of cities plagued by automobile overcrowding. Ms. Jacobs’ prescience in this respect, in my view, lends even further credibility to the work as a whole. In conclusion, then, I would recommend The Death and Life of Great American Cities to anyone interested in urban planning, but I also believe it would be a good addition to the bookshelf of any public official whose work coincides with development.

The Mind of God: Neuroscience, Faith, and a Search for the Soul by Jay Lombard

At the halfway point through my postgraduate studies now, I can definitively say that nothing slows down a lifelong reader quite like going back to school, haha.  I did want to assure everyone that I am still plugging away at the ancient literary epic I mentioned in my Gone Girl post last year; I read volume two over summer break, and I’ll make a post whenever I manage to finish all four volumes.  In the meantime, though, I’ll share the book I read at the beginning of this most recent semester, The Mind of God: Neuroscience, Faith, and a Search for the Soul by Dr. Jay Lombard.

Dr. Lombard’s professional biography describes him as a renowned neurologist who has worked stints at several prominent New York-area hospitals and published research in the New England Journal of Medicine.  The Mind of God also features an introduction by former U.S. Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, a mental health care advocate and survivor of bipolar disease and substance abuse.

Without going into too much detail, I placed an Amazon.com order over the summer for several volumes pertaining to the neurological perspective on the Judeo-Christian soul.  I felt challenged in my personal definition of the human soul by events occurring in my family and I was seeking alternative perspectives.  Even more specifically, I have always considered myself to be a person who can successfully integrate scientific and religious viewpoints into my personal worldview, and I hoped to read a volume which did not prejudice readers against the viewpoints of either “camp.”  Needless to say, the bar I set for The Mind of God was rather high.

Happily, I can report that Dr. Lombard’s work was able to assuage some of the concerns that I was experiencing to my desired level of satisfaction.  The volume is slim but tackles major philosophical questions beyond the nature of the human soul, such as the nature of good versus evil and the “meaning of life.”  Dr. Lombard’s central thesis is that the presence of a deity can most clearly be observed in the power of human connection; furthermore, the connectivity between humans and in society is the strongest evidence in Dr. Lombard’s view for the existence of a soul.  He can explain it better than I can, to be sure, but the volume contains a deft blend of professional anecdotes, religious references, and popularly digestible neuroscience to be comforting for someone in my situation.

Since I read The Mind of God for such highly specific reasons, it is challenging for me to offer a broad-based recommendation for the work (as I am unsure what audience groups might be most interested in reading it).  I can say that for me the volume was personally helpful as I experience personal affronts to my worldview, and so it may also be for others in similar situations.  I might also recommend the book to individuals from a strongly-religious or strongly-nonreligious background with interest in the more centrist view held by persons like myself.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman

The circumstances that led to me reading Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down over the winter holidays were nothing if not unlikely.  Originally released in 1997, the book first caught my eye in the early 2000s on a coffee shop bookshelf in my hometown.  I was only in elementary school back then, but even at that young age I recall being captivated by the concepts of culture clash and intercultural miscommunication recounted on the book’s back cover.  I knew my mother would never let me read such an “adult” book as young as I was, and as such, I made a resolution to myself that someday I would find Fadiman’s book once again and make it a point to read it.  Now — about fifteen years later by my count — I have accomplished that objective.

The thrust of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down concerns Fadiman’s case study of Lia Lee, an epileptic child growing up in 1980s Central California.  Lia was a member of the Hmong ethnic group, her family part of a mass exodus of Hmong who immigrated to the United States in the 1970s and 1980s after participating in the Vietnam War under clandestine direction from the CIA.  Hmong religious tradition suggests that many illnesses are spiritual rather than physical; the title of the book is a translation of the Hmong word for “epilepsy,” and refers to the condition in which a sufferer’s soul is snatched by an evil spirit.  Lia’s parents came from a rural mountain village in Laos where shamanistic beliefs were strongly held.  These same beliefs made the couple hesitant to treat their daughter’s epilepsy, as in Hmong tradition some epileptics go on to become shamans themselves.

Lia’s parents did seek medical attention for their daughter, but her case is a tragic history of missed opportunities, miscommunications, inadequate hospital infrastructure in the face of a migrant crisis, and healthcare professionals improperly trained in dealing with patients from outside their own culture.  For example, Lia’s family was regularly requested to consent to procedures and to sign documents in English, a language which they could not read, write or speak.  Healthcare staff, for their part, were frustrated at the parents’ noncompliance with Lia’s complex medication regime and home health recommendations.  The situation spiraled out of control over a period of several years, eventually culminating in a grand mal seizure and subsequent hospitalization that robbed Lia of any chance at a normal life.

The new afterword in my edition of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down mentioned that since its release, Fadiman’s book has become required reading in many medical ethics and medical communications courses.  I am honestly quite relieved to hear this, because at the time of the book’s original publication in 1997, the state of intercultural medicine in America sounded somewhat bleak.  Although it is clear that significant strides have been made, from the availability of translators to increased empathy for nontraditional religious beliefs (within “reason”), modern medicine still has a long way to go in order to meet people like the Lee family halfway.

As for my impressions of the work itself, even though it took me fifteen years to finally sit down and read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, I am very glad that I sat down and took the time to do so.  Fadiman effectively interweaves the story of Lia’s medical history and her family’s immigration to the United States with the larger narrative of the Hmong ethnic group as a whole and their participation in the Vietnam War, a subject which I heretofore knew nothing about.  I learned, for example, that many Hmong suffered from PTSD just as Vietnam War veterans did, and that many so-called “Secret War” veterans had been informally promised pensions in the United States by the CIA, only instead to receive public assistance and the discrimination it brought against their community.  Although I am not a medical professional, reading the work certainly gave me a greater appreciation for the plight of refugees, both in the struggles they face in their homeland and in their new homes overseas.

In conclusion, then, I would offer a resounding recommendation of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down to all medical professionals and medical students, intercultural communication professionals, students of Southeast Asian history, and concerned citizens seeking a form of insight into the current refugee crisis in Europe.

Deep South by Paul Theroux

Before diving into my first post after a long hiatus, I want to apologize for not giving any forewarning about my sudden absence.  The summer and fall of 2017 brought about several major changes in my life, including a career change, a new relationship, and the beginning of my postgraduate studies.  Needless to say, between all of these happenings, it was hard to fit in time to read, and I have been “stuck” halfway through Paul Theroux’s Deep South since July, when I posted my review of The Seven Daughters of Eve.  Rest assured that reading and reviewing are still considerations on my mind, but until I complete my graduate degree (likely to occur in 2019), the frequency of posts may be somewhat reduced.

With all of that out of the way, let us now turn our attention to the core subject matter of this post, my review of Deep South.  Despite living in the Southern United States, I had never seen this book in stores until I was traveling abroad on business in Toronto, Canada, where I picked it up in an independently owned bookstore along with a few other similarly unusual finds.  Upon conducting some research, I learned that the book’s author, Paul Theroux, is an accomplished travel writer and has written accounts of his time in Africa, Asia and Oceania, among other places.  Despite being so widely traveled, however, in his old age Theroux realized that he had rarely ventured outside New England within the confines of the United States, leading him on a year-long series of road trips around the region.

The book is divided into four principle sections, one for each season of the year and corresponding to a trip undertaken by Theroux.  The travelogue sections are interspersed with interludes pertaining to some of the finer points of Southern culture that Theroux finds intriguing, such as Southern literature in the vein of William Faulkner.  These road trips find Theroux traveling throughout the Deep South to Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas.  The author generally avoids well-populated and/or wealthy areas in favor of the rural, derelict and impoverished communities that make up much of the region.  Throughout his travels, Theroux makes a concerted effort not only to record chance encounters with locals in such places as diners and churches, but also to visit community action centers in an attempt to learn what forms of assistance are being offered to these distressed communities.

Theroux’s unique perspective on the Deep South as a well-seasoned traveler is one of Deep South‘s strengths.  Other travel writers based in the United States may be able to comment on the region’s poverty and perceived “backwards” nature, but Theroux is able to recount a more pertinent and startling narrative, such as the fact that many Southern economic development corporations receive less in federal grant funding than their counterparts in Third World countries, despite demonstrating equal need.  Similarly, Theroux’s viewpoint as an outsider allows him to analyze Southern culture as a neutral observer, leading him to draw his own conclusions about such debated issues as the continued support among Southern whites for the so-called “lost cause of the Confederacy.”

I have read many good books in 2017 (although not as many as I would have liked), but Deep South was one of the most insightful for me personally as an American born and raised in the South.  The book offered potential explanations for queries which I have wondered about for many years while simultaneously bringing entirely new issues to my attention.  It is both an expose and a call to action for the next generation of young Southerners.  I would go so far as to consider it “recommended reading” for both urban Southerners unaware of living conditions in other parts of the South and for non-Southerners wishing to learn more about our region’s contemporary demographics, culture, economic conditions, and politics.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

I have been fascinated by the human mind for as long as I can remember.  This interest likely stems from the fact that very few people in my family are what could be considered neurotypical, with a genome including conditions ranging from OCD and depression to Alzheimer’s disease and developmental disability.  I often find books on the “hard sciences” difficult to read (see my previous review on Andrew Hodges’ biography of Alan Turing for an example), but Oliver Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a notable exception.

Oliver Sacks was an Oxford-educated neurologist who treated patients facing a variety of rare ailments at hospitals, universities and hospices during the late 1900s.  Sacks’ persona was popularized by the 1990 Oscar-nominated film Awakenings (trailer here), in which Sacks’ character was portrayed by Robin Williams alongside Robert De Niro.  Awakenings, undoubtedly Sacks’ most famous book and film, recounts the doctor’s research into the use of the experimental drug L-Dopa to treat catatonic victims of a pre-WWII epidemic of “sleepy sickness.”  Although The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is less dramatic than Awakenings, it is of somewhat similar content, being a compilation of case studies in which Sacks describes some of the stranger neurological phenomena observed during his career.

I found Hat to be an unexpectedly insightful book into the workings of the human mind.  I have watched various National Geographic documentaries and the like about the current theories on the anatomy and function of the brain, but Sacks’ case studies challenge many of the commonly held assumptions in modern neurological theory.  Sacks relates many of his cases back to older neurological literature written by doctors who, though probably famous in the field, are people that I have never heard of, and though I would probably find their works to be extremely dry compared to Sacks’ lively and engaging prose, Sacks almost makes me want to give them a try.

In addition to its bold contesting of current neurological practices, Hat also provides the reader with an opportunity to learn more about the scope of the human condition.  Our society’s definition of “normal” can be shockingly narrow, but Sacks demonstrates that there are many ways that neurodivergent individuals can live happy and productive lives.  Taking this logic further, sometimes society’s attempts to “normalize” these neurodivergents can actually reduce their quality of life.  There are a few examples in the text, but the one that really stuck out to me concerned a pair of developmentally disabled twins with savant-like mathematics abilities.  They often sat together, for instance, reciting prime numbers more than ten digits long to one another (note: this was in the 1960s, when many of these large prime numbers had not yet been calculated).  The group home where they lived eventually determined that the twins ought to be separated to improve their integration into society.  They eventually became able to hold down jobs, but also lost their mathematical genius.

The case of the twins is just one of the multitude of chapters discussed in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and surely the title of the book alone is enough to entice many readers.  I would recommend this book to people interested in medical nonfiction, given its accessibility and Sacks’ engaging writing style.  Individuals with a neurodiverse friend or relative may also benefit from reading this book.  Personally, I learned a great deal from The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and plan to read more of Sacks’ work in the future.

Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges

I believe I first read about Alan Turing in one of those jumbo-sized children’s books that are available on all sorts of topics and are often given as birthday gifts to people like me, who love to read.  The topic of this book was espionage, and my young mind was thrilled to be reading about Turing’s role as a code breaker at Bletchley Park during World War II.  I rediscovered Turing in high school and was fascinated to learn more about his life, including his tragic suicide after being convicted of the “crime” of homosexuality by the British government and chemically castrated as punishment.

It was around this time that I first heard of Andrew Hodges’ Alan Turing: The Enigma, widely regarded as the definitive Turing biography.  Unfortunately, the book was not currently in print in the U.S., and it was impossible for me to get my hands on a copy in good condition.  All of that changed in 2012, which was designated Alan Turing Year in the UK as a celebration of the mathematician’s life and successes.  Not only was The Enigma republished in the U.S., but Turing himself was pardoned by the Queen in 2013 and The Imitation Game, a biopic of Turing starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, premiered in 2014 (see the trailer here).

You may be wondering, if I bought Alan Turing: The Enigma in 2012, why did it take me five years to finally read it?  The main reason is that I was applying to colleges that same year, and wanted both to focus on my academic coursework, and to stick to books in my free time that required less “reading comprehension.”  By the time I felt ready to pick up the book, as any bibliophile can attest, I had so many other books on the shelf competing for my attention that time simply got away from me.

Unfortunately, the very concern that made me hesitant to pick up The Enigma in 2012 is the very reason that, in 2017, I was forced to put it down unfinished.  In the prologue I learned that Andrew Hodges, the biographer, is an Oxford mathematician who has contributed to the field through his work in “twister theory,” a subject whose Wikipedia page I didn’t even try to understand.  Of course, this makes Hodges the perfect match for writing about a genius like Turing, but it also makes the work quite difficult for the layman to read.  I greatly enjoyed reading the passages about Turing’s childhood and school days — for example, I learned that he had trouble discerning left from right as a boy, and always put a mark on his left thumb to tell the difference — but once I started entering the chapters about his work, I was totally lost.

I attended school for liberal arts, and while I did well in high school algebra and calculus and even took a statistics class in college, math has never been something I retained well or enjoyed.  While reading Hodges’ explanations, I found myself reading the same paragraphs over again in an attempt to grasp the meaning.  If I skipped a math-heavy section in an attempt to rejoin the saga of Turing’s life, however, the biography did not make as much sense, as it was missing the most crucial element.  Regrettably, it seemed that this book and I were ill-matched.

I would recommend Alan Turing: The Enigma to anyone who wants to learn more about the life of this underappreciated, truly remarkable man, someone who has been largely forgotten by history outside of his native country and who was oppressed during his lifetime for being who he was.  HOWEVER, I think a necessary prerequisite of reading this text may also be a good grasp of higher-level mathematics and some basic computer hardware terminology.  For myself, I hope to be back with you at some point in the future with a Turing biography that is more accessible to me.