A compelling indictment of our failing health care system and the people falling through its ever widening cracks.
A deeply personal, unsparing analysis of how neglected diseases disproportionately affect marginalized peoples in the world’s richest country—and why they need not.
While Covid-19 continues to circle the globe and wealthy countries clamor for vaccines, dozens of “neglected tropical diseases” are ravaging more than 1 billion people living in developing regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The treatments for some of these are available, but accessing them can be difficult or impossible. When these diseases appear in developed, Northern Hemisphere countries, they are rarely diagnosed accurately by doctors, who did not learn about them in medical schools, and sociocultural barriers, political choices, and racism further limit options for care. In her latest, Hernández, a professor of English and former New York Times reporter, explores her family’s struggles with Chagas disease, better known as “kissing bug disease.” The author highlights how poverty, policies that limit health care for immigrants and marginalized peoples, and the worldwide neglect of public health infrastructure all contribute to the 10,000 deaths among the 6 million cases of Chagas disease in the Americas, 300,000 of which are in the U.S. The heroes of this story are not only the doctors, nurses, public health professionals, and volunteers who work tirelessly testing for and treating the disease—as well as identifying and controlling infestations of kissing bugs (Triatoma species) and the Trypanosoma parasite that causes the illness—but also the patients and support groups who have increased awareness of it, especially in Texas and California, where it is most prevalent in the U.S. And, of course, the tireless family members–cum-caregivers like Hernández. The author’s Tía Dora, who lived with and died from Chagas disease, changed Hernández’s life. Her story, ably rendered by the author, should open readers’ eyes to a persistent plague.
A compelling indictment of our failing health care system and the people falling through its ever widening cracks.Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-951142-52-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Tin House
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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