HEARTS AND HEIFERS

A memoir focuses on a trailblazing, Texas-bred physician and cattleman.

In this impassioned autobiography, veteran pediatrician Terry King chronicles his adventurous life, starting with his humble beginnings in 1938, when he was born needing resuscitation via an emergency ice bath. From that point, he writes, his journey was charged with the electricity of a good, honest life and the satisfaction of hard work. A tour of his extended family tree includes his parents, who met in high school yet hailed from disparate backgrounds. The anecdotes flow freely and plentifully as the author regales readers with heartfelt and often humorous tales of childhood foibles, such as his affinity for matches and fire, much to the dismay of his younger brother, Richard. Conversely, wartime food rationing placed a strain on the region, particularly when his father was drafted into the Army, leaving his mother to raise two rambunctious boys on a busy cattle ranch. Looking back, King remains grateful for the environment that nourished his body and spirit: “The great outdoors, the sense of accomplishment for a hard day’s work, the joy of watching the birth of a calf, the stars at night, the birds nearby—they all influence your thoughts and who you become.” An avid sportsman, he remained driven and focused throughout his school years and well past the beginnings of a marriage that would endure for decades and fatherhood. After being fascinated by a movie featuring a heart-lung machine, the author embarked on a medical odyssey to become a pediatric cardiologist and was inspired and influenced by several notable doctors along the way. King’s engaging stories continue through his time in the Air Force and at a busy New Orleans hospital, where he served as a devoted pediatrician eagerly pioneering new and revolutionary lifesaving cardiac procedures, many garnering him great industry accolades. But eventually, the memories of his bucolic childhood would tug at his heart, and the King family soon relocated to Northeastern Louisiana and started a cattle ranch that expanded in acreage as time progressed.

There is a palpable passion to King’s prose and an immutable sense of pride permeating every page of his memoir. Complementing the nuanced prose, the book offers the personal photographs of family, friends, and medical colleagues who have enriched the author’s journey. He admits to the urge to pen this work after the death of his parents and of having an “uneasy feeling that something’s left to be done.” His ultimate purpose in writing the book was to “thank and honor the many who have impacted my life.” Buoyed by his Christian faith and credence in cowboy wisdom, both of which are fondly and consistently referenced throughout the memoir, King possesses a venturesome spirit and a fierce dedication to his homeland that come across beautifully. “Growing up country is one of my most treasured blessings,” he writes. Never boring or overbearingly sentimental, the author’s writing strikes a keen balance between the resonant musings of an accomplished medical provider and the reflections of a Southern cattleman. Fans of stories about cowboys and native Texans will discover much to enjoy and admire in King’s chronology—written with his wife, Nancy King—of a life lived to its fullest.    

An entertaining, enlightening self-portrait from a proud man with an immense heart and soul.