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THE BLOOD OF STRANGERS

Name: THE BLOOD OF STRANGERS
Author: Frank Huyler
ISBN: 0-520-21863-9

STORIES FROM EMERGENCY MEDICINE

by Frank Huyler ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1999

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Meditations on the human condition: an unusual series of quiet, concentrated stories from an emergency-room physician. Huyler is a published poet and surgeon in Albuquerque, N.M., and he doesn’t have to shout to get his message across. Dramatic, desperate, baffling events abound, and Huyler easily draws us into the picture: a man transferred from prison, in a coma for weeks, with Huyler about to withdraw life support—watched by guards, family, and hospital staff. “He always looked the same, covered with tattoos, his arms pockmarked by years of shooting heroin and cocaine, his eyes half open to the ceiling, kept alive by the ventilator. . . . He was in for murder. Forty-five years old, with an abscess in his heart from shooting contaminated blood into his veins, it had finally come to this: my shift, my night on call, my job to turn him off.” There are some intriguing oddities here: Huyler’s medical-school anatomy-lab partner is arrested for murdering his lover; a catastrophically injured rodeo rider in the intensive-care unit completely recovers in spite of being treated on alternate days with either benign neglect or medical full-court press, depending on which of two attending physicians is on call. Throughout, Huyler’s basic respect and admiration for others shows; he likes patients who are brave in the face of disaster—old women facing dire surgery who say they understand, “who smile and pat my hand and tell me to send their children in. I like the men who flirt with the nurses even though the EKG is unmistakable.” And in the end, Huyler sums up the only lesson: “Odds whisper around us, wheels turn, molecules whir like bobbins. And then, maybe once or twice in our whole lives, events conspire, statistics align with the force of diamonds, against us, and they knock us out, there is no chance, the wind blows through us, we’re gone.” Utterly engrossing, moving, poetic accounts.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-520-21863-9

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Univ. of California

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
WHITE HOT LIGHT
by Frank Huyler

- BOOK REVIEW
RIGHT OF THIRST
by Frank Huyler

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAWS OF INVISIBLE THINGS
by Frank Huyler

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.