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THE FOUR OF US

THE STORY OF A FAMILY

Swados (Listening Out Loud, 1988, etc.), a writer/composer best known for the musical Runaways, offers a painful memoir of growing-up in a family beset by mental illness—with compelling ghastliness in many of the details but insufficient overall drama or insight. A brief prologue introduces the family: the Swadoses—Jewish, upper middle class—in 1950's and 1960's Buffalo, where ``appearance was everything.'' Then come four long chapters, each focusing on one member of the family. First, and always foremost, is Elizabeth's schizophrenic older brother, Lincoln: eccentric, filthy, and brilliant as a child, he fell wildly ill during college, attempted suicide at 24 (losing an arm and a leg), and became a Lower East Side ``character'' who eventually died in wretched isolation. Next Swados turns to her depressed, alcoholic mother—sporadically creative but ``in her heart...a lonely orphan'' who committed suicide when the pressures (her son's condition, her suffocating marriage) became too much. Then there is father Robert, who reacted to the family illnesses (including his mother's schizophrenia) with rage and sheer activity, losing himself in an all-consuming sports-law career. And finally there's Elizabeth herself, always driven to be ``the child about whom my father could tell stories to his clients'': She overachieved like crazy, composing and performing, getting admitted to Bennington at 16, scoring Medea at La Mama for Andrei Serban at 19; she also exhausted herself with wild living, determined not to be like her conformist parents. The four-part structure here makes for a repetitious and often anticlimactic narrative, without satisfying shape or development. Swados's prose doesn't have enough variety or grace to fill out such an ambitious design. But her sincere attempt to understand her family's misery is often affecting, and the story of brother ``Lincoln Sail'' (as he called himself) is, though disjointed, grimly fascinating.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1991

ISBN: 0-374-15219-5

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1991

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A SHORT GUIDE TO A LONG LIFE

Useful but disappointingly commonplace tips.

In a follow-up to The End of Illness (2012), which explored how technological advances will transform medicine, Agus (Medicine and Engineering/Univ. of Southern California) restates time-tested but too often overlooked principles for healthy living.

The author outlines simple measures that average citizens can take to live healthier lives and extend their life spans by taking advantage of modern technology to develop personalized records. These would include a list of medical tests and recommended treatments. Agus also suggests keeping track of indicators that can be observed at home on a regular basis—e.g., changes in energy, weight, appetite and blood pressure, blood sugar and general appearance. He advises that all of this information be made available online, and it is also helpful to investigate family history and consider DNA testing where indicated. Along with maintaining a healthy weight, Agus emphasizes the importance of eating a balanced diet, with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and a minimum of red meat. Avoid packaged vitamins and food supplements, and if possible, grow your own vegetables or buy frozen vegetables, which will generally be fresher than those on supermarket shelves. The author also warns against processed foods that make health claims but contain additives or excessive amounts of sugar or fat. Regular mealtimes and plenty of sleep, frequent hand-washing and oral hygiene are a must; smoking and excessive time in the sun should also be avoided. Agus recommends that adults should consider taking statins and baby aspirin as preventative measures. He concludes with a decade-by-decade checklist of annual medical examinations that should be routine—e.g. blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol screenings, from one’s 20s on; colonoscopies, prostate exams and mammograms later—and a variety of top-10 lists (for example, “Top 10 Reasons to Take a Walk”).

Useful but disappointingly commonplace tips.

Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-4767-3095-0

Page Count: 128

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013

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THE END OF ILLNESS

Oncologist Agus (Medicine and Engineering/Univ. of Southern California) predicts that the application of advanced technology for modeling complex systems will transform 21st-century medicine.

The author writes that a remark Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann made to him in 2009—“Look at cancer as a system"—transformed the way he views his own specialty and the entire field of preventative medicine. It made him realize that “[r]ather than honoring the body as the exceedingly complex system that it is, we keep looking for the individual gene that has gone awry, or for the one ‘secret’ that can improve our health.” Agus writes that although the ability to sequence the entire human genome is a great step forward, it is insufficient for achieving a significant breakthrough. Even though it may start with a mutation, cancer “is a dynamic process that's happening…far from the confines of a static piece of DNA”—it involves the body's immune system, its ability to regulate cell growth, metabolism and more. Agus directs his university’s Center for Applied Molecular Medicine and is the co-founder of two personalized medicine companies, Applied Proteomics and Navigenics. His hope is that their research will contribute to developing better analytical tools for preventative medicine and for the treatment of cancers. These will address the functioning of the body as a whole, applying digital technology already used by physicists to provide virtual models of cancers and model the action of proteins that regulate cell communication in the body. He also hopes to develop tools that will provide information on the concentration of different proteins in a drop of blood taken from a patient, which may reveal the onset of disease. The author also includes some guiding principles and warnings about certain healthy practices that may not be so healthy. A refreshing change of pace in the medical field, but by venturing beyond his field of expertise to pontificate on a wide range of subjects, Agus makes his otherwise intriguing narrative difficult to follow.  

 

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012

ISBN: 978-1-4516-1017-8

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Free Press

Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011

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