ANGELA AMBROSIA

by Ray Errol Fox ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 1979

We must suppress our impulses to compare this to Love Story. Angela's case--living with leukemia for ten years--is both extraordinary and wrenching, but Fox's version of it borders on bathos. Angela's condition was diagnosed when she was 16. She was given six months to live but her Italian Catholic family shielded her from the truth. Eventually she recognized the signs. Here she emerges as a romantic adolescent who fell in love with her doctor, wrestled with feelings not allowed a strict Catholic, then--at 19--fell in love and married a Jewish hospital technician against both families' wishes. Certainly Angela has suffered and survived enormous pain, extended herself for other patients, and struggled toward independence, but why she deserves a book remains unclear. Fox makes too much of her predicament, writing short, tense sentences to showcase her courage: ""When it was time to walk, she couldn't. They said she didn't want to. She suggested that it was the clip. They implied that it was her head. . . . She expected a therapist; they sent a psychologist."" Misguided.

Pub Date: March 16, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1979

Categories: NONFICTION