A sharp—and funny—account of one man’s attempt to understand why so many of us suffer head pain.
It’s not just in his head.
Zeller, a former New York Times journalist, dives into a topic whose central feature is, in the words of author Elaine Scarry’s description of all pain, its “unsharability…its resistance to language.” Zeller’s excellent debut book is largely about migraines, an affliction that plagues millions, derails careers, threatens lives, and yet is largely overlooked by the vast biomedical research community. Zeller recounts the long history of migraines, from ancient Egyptians to Darwin, and the often brutal measures applied to relieve the pain. The most disturbing part of the book is his personal story, and the stories of dozens of sufferers, who all pay the price of a life diminished by sudden, unrelenting, excruciating pain. The author reports that there are roughly 700 headache specialists with diplomas in the world. “In Montana, where I now live,” he writes, “there is one.” Yet the affected population is estimated to be 50 million people. Direct and indirect costs, according to a 2018 estimate, is about $28 billion annually. Even with such enormous health and economic consequences, federal research investments fall far short of matching the burden of the disorder. Zeller reviews the available treatments, some prescribed, most not, and a few illegal. His personal experience with many of them and his investigation leave him with the view that most don’t work, some work in the short term, and a handful of newly approved (and expensive) medications don’t have a track record of effectiveness. Headache patients, he writes, must often endure a “long, zigzagging journey through a pharmacological forest.” Zeller’s search to explore the frontiers of headache research takes him to a few leaders in the field who are pursuing tantalizing new findings. While they are engaged in intense competition, their numbers are few, their resources comparatively meager, and their progress uncertain.
A sharp—and funny—account of one man’s attempt to understand why so many of us suffer head pain.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780358507758
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
