The human side of research medicine is the focus of this account of three patients participating in clinical trials of new drugs for the treatment of AIDS and cancer. In 1995 and 1996 science writer Kelly (co-author with Thomas Verny of The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, not reviewed) spent some 200 hours with Edward Sandisfield, Romy Hochman, and Julie Conte as they faced life-threatening diseases. Sandisfield, a middle-age gay man knowledgeable about AIDS and its treatment, was so desperate to win a place in the clinical trial at Bellevue of a new protease inhibitor, indivir, in combination with AZT and 3TC, that he was prepared to lie his way into the program if necessary. The Hochmans put their 14-year-old daughter with osteosarcoma (a form of bone cancer that frequently metastasizes to the lungs) into a clinical trial at NYU Medical Center to boost her chances of survival; however, Romy was randomized into the control group, receiving only standard treatment. Conte, a 34-year-old woman with breast cancer, was leery of joining a clinical trial testing a high-dose combination-drug therapy, but having already lost her mother and one sister to the disease, she entered the program at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Pennsylvania. Kelly stayed with his three subjects during exams, interviews, and treatment, observing them and talking to them about their experiences, their hopes, and their fears, and interviewing their families, friends, and doctors. Some conversations seem to be reported verbatim, at times giving the stories an up-close and personal feel. In each, Kelly inserts an essay on the disease and the treatment being tested. While the stories end with all three patients alive, an afterword reveals that by 1997 one had succumbed. Kelly’s discussion of the medicine is thorough, but the portraits of his subjects are uneven. Sandisfield’s story is the most complete and his character and his world the best delineated; by comparison, Conte’s story seems sketchy, and the teenager Hochman remains opaque.
Pub Date: Jan. 12, 1999
ISBN: 0-553-10113-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1998
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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