An eye-opening look at the controversial and highly publicized death that led to major revisions in the punishing schedules that doctors-in-training once faced. Eighteen-year-old Libby Zion died on March 4, 1994, just hours after being brought to the emergency room of New York Hospital with a mystifying range of symptoms; the exact cause of her death has never been determined. Her father, combative journalist Sidney Zion, embarked on a 10-year campaignif not a vendettato bring New York Hospital and its doctors to justice. What happened in those few hours Libby spent in one of the country's leading medical centers? Robins (Alien Ink, 1992, etc.) does a masterful job of sorting through the complex maze of conflicting memories and opinions about Libby's strange symptoms, what they meant, and whether she received appropriate care. The author's thorough reporting reveals more than enough blame to go around and gives context to the unusual jury decision that apportioned responsibility equally between Libby and the defendants for her death. But the real culprit for Robins is what she calls medicine's dark secret, the ``closed order book'' system that gives relatively inexperienced, overworked residents and interns the primary responsibility for hospitalized patients, with little or no supervision. Robins's revelations here are important, indeed shocking; but she is most affecting in limning her portrait of gentle, bright, creative Libby. The underlying tragedy of Libby's death is the distance separating parents and children, and the self-delusion of Sidney Zion, who thought he knew his daughter (``She was my confidante . . . my buddy'') but failed to see that this teenager was drowning in a slough of despair, medicating herself with a medley of drugs that probably contributed to her death. Robins elucidates a human as well as a medical disaster in a page-turning read about life, death, justice, and responsibility. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-30809-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
There are many universal, compelling issues left unexplored, but Aquan-Assee’s recovery and construction of the narrative...
A slightly out-of-focus, harrowing account of recovery from what a doctor called “horrific” injuries sustained in a 1997 Toronto motorcycle wreck.
Describing in the third person the days of his long coma, he notes the efforts of his family and friends to remain with him 24/7, attempting to keep him mentally and physically stimulated. Aquan-Assee then downshifts into a slow-motion first person account of his own frustrating efforts to regain physical and mental focus, fighting back memory loss and struggling to remember people’s names from one second to the next. Neither angle is entirely satisfactory to particularize what surely was a long and arduous battle by the 29-year-old to pull himself back, often by the fingernails, into a world in which he felt increasingly out of touch. For instance, he slides past crucial moments when doctors encouraged his family to “pull the plug,” and their subsequent refusal to do so, even when his life signs were little more than flickers. It would have been helpful to know the thoughts and emotions of his parents and siblings at those precious turning points, as well as the doctors’ reactions to his subsequent recovery–a feat admirably accomplished in spite of their negative proclamations regarding the prospects for his “quality of life.” These are the hot-button issues crying out for greater attention throughout. But Aquan-Assee’s focus remains narrow, limiting the potential audience.
There are many universal, compelling issues left unexplored, but Aquan-Assee’s recovery and construction of the narrative are triumph enough.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0-973-2782-0-X
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
With poetic prose and vivid watercolors, Yang has created a rich portrait of life in China during the 1930s and '40s. Yang chronicles her Baba's (or Daddy's) boyhood and adolescence in 20 tales, each preceded by a watercolor. Baba was the fourth son in the eighth generation of the wealthy House of Yang, and his landscape teems with physical and spiritual dangers. He's threatened by torrential rains, ravenous wolves, red-bearded bandits, famines, demons, Japanese bombs, Russian troops, Communists, Nationalists, even an arranged marriage. When Baba is six, his family is forced out of their Manchurian homeland after the Japanese invasion. They move to China proper, then return five years later when Baba's father loses his job with a mining company. They live under the protective patronage of the family Patriarch until a bloody tug-of-war between followers of Mao and Chiang Kai- shek rends the family and country apart. Ancient legends, political upheavals, and religious ceremonies define Baba's youth. Storytellers teach him about gods and demons, prodigal sons, and the ghosts of the improperly buried. Their wisdom then plays out in his own life as Baba witnesses the goddess of Mercy protect his mother from marauding invaders; the troubled ways of one of his older brothers; and a 49-day funeral ceremony ensuring his great- great-grandfather safe passage to Heaven. Yang's prose feels ancient and foreign; for instance, she describes the effects of the first Japanese bombs: ``The glass windowpanes inhaled and exhaled, but the paper panes heaved a sigh and suddenly gave way, cracking like white porcelain.'' The tension between ancient rituals and modern reality elevates these tales from the merely beautiful into an astonishing personal vision, and a unique portrait emerges of a culture straddling thousands of years. Yang's work is like a lovely painted scroll swimming with wild souls, beasts, birds, flowers, day and night sky, tragedy, and hope.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-15-100063-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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