Book Review: The Sirens of Mars by Sarah Stewart Johnson

 

The Sirens of Mars

Searching for Life on Another World

Author: Sarah Stewart Johnson

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

Date of Publication: July 7, 2020

Pages: 288

     The Sirens of Mars is a unique amalgam of history, science, philosophy and memoir.  Sarah Stewart Johnson is a planetary scientist and an assistant professor at Georgetown University.  In this book she gives us the history of man's interest in and study of the planet Mars.  This starts with early attempts to describe and then map the planet's surface.  It culminates in today's sophisticated rovers, complete with equipment to analyze soil and rock samples in attempt to find conditions compatible with life.

    This book chronicles the many successes and failures of Mars expeditions as well as the surprises which have come from these missions.  The author does an amazing job of explaining complex scientific concepts and creates very understandable commentaries on how this research is conducted and, more importantly, why this research is necessary.  Exploration of a planet thought to be similar to ours but not contaminated by homo sapiens is essential to our understanding of the beginnings of life on Earth.

   The author weaves a parallel narrative of her own burgeoning childhood interest in science, her college and graduate school experiences and her subsequent participation in the male-dominated field of planetary science.  She cleverly juxtaposes her own personal milestones (career advancements, meeting and marrying her husband, and her first pregnancy) with landmark events in the history of Mars exploration.  The chapter where she describes the birth of her first child while at the same time the Mars rover Curiosity (a project with which she was critically involved) successfully navigated the Gale Crater looking for simple organic compounds, the "building blocks" of potential life, was captivating.

     I found this a very readable, entertaining, and educational book.  The author does an outstanding job of bringing complex science to a non-science audience.  It gave me new insights into the importance of  this kind of research.  I enjoyed The Sirens of Mars much more than I anticipated and recommend it to anyone curious about scientific investigation, space exploration, and/or planetary science.

Book Review: Chasing My Cure by David Fajgenbaum

 

Chasing My Cure: A Doctor's Race to Turn Hope into Action

Author: David Fajgenbaum

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Date of Publication: September 10, 2019

Pages: 230

     Finding a cure for a rare disease about which little is known is challenging to even the most seasoned medical researcher.  Imagine if that researcher was an inexperienced medical student who is also suffering the ravages of this obscure disease and you have David Fajgenbaum's Chasing My Cure.  This plot line sounds like something out of an implausible, syrupy TV show, but this riveting story is true.

    Chasing My Cure begins with David's early life in Raleigh, North Carolina.  His father was a successful orthopedic surgeon and team doctor for the North Carolina State Wolfpack.  David was an excellent athlete and was a high school football star.  He went on to play quarterback at my alma mater, Georgetown University.  David's interest in medicine began with an unfortunate turn of events involving his mother.  Unfortunately she was diagnosed with a glioblastoma during his freshman year of college and died fairly quickly.  We get an early glimpse of this young man's organizational skills as he forms a support group for grieving college students, first at Georgetown but soon at many campuses nationwide.  David decided to pursue oncology to try to help patients like his mother.

   While attending medical school at the University of Pennsylvania he begins experiencing severe fatigue which he blames on his rigorous schedule.  He becomes severely ill, is admitted to the hospital and proceeds to plummet downhill from a process no one can diagnose.  He is thought to have an autoimmune disease and is treated as such but continues a downward course of multiple organ system  failure.  He is even given his last rights, a sacrament for Catholics who are felt to be close to death.  He finally responds favorably to therapies and a diagnosis of Castleman Disease is made.  This is a rare disorder where a patient's lymphatic system overproduces interleukin-6 causing an intense systemic inflammatory response.  

    The remainder of the book chronicles David's quest to find out all he can about this disease and improve treatment.  In between four near-fatal relapses he is able to complete medical school.  He then studies for an M.B.A. at the Wharton School of Business in order to better organize an international collaborative effort to study and defeat Castleman Disease.  He is aided by a very supportive family and group of colleagues.  He falls back on his experience in sports to foster teamwork and achieve goals.  This is a fascinating study of one individual's tenacity, will to live, and capacity to enlist a myriad of different doctors, medical researchers, and even patients to get a handle on this disease.  At one point he writes:

                    "Fear disintegrates, Doubt disorganizes.  Hope clears the way."

     That reminded me of the little poem by Emily Dickinson:

                                  

     This book is a tribute to one man's grit and determination.  It is also a tribute to hope, that most fragile of human emotions which is often so easily dashed.  This man has remained in remission for a number of years now, utilizing a therapy that he was able to help create.  He is an assistant professor of Medicine in Translational Medicine and Human Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania, Associate Director, Patient Impact of the Penn Orphan Disease Center, Founding Director of the Center for Cytokine Storm Treatment and Laboratory, and Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN).  In December of 2020 Dr. Fajgenbaum published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine about cytokine storm in covid-19 patients.  His efforts at collaboration have paid off handsomely.  This is truly an inspiring story,.    

Book Review: Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

 

Miracle Creek

Author: Angie Kim

Publisher: Picador

Date of Publication: April 7, 2020

Pages: 384

     This is a marvelous novel which succeeds on many levels.  First, it is a top-notch "who-done-it".  Four patients and parents of two of those are in a sealed multi-place hyperbaric chamber when a fire erupts.  One pediatric patient and another child's parent are killed in the mishap.  This event is told in the opening of the book and the background is all revealed through the murder trial of the dead child's mother.  Did she intentionally set the fire as all of the circumstantial evidence would suggest?  Could the perpetrator be any one of a number of other characters?  The reader has suspicions, but they change multiple times as details are elicited during the trial and through flashbacks.  The plot of Mystery Creek is a variation of the "Closed Circle Mystery" genre: a limited number of suspects are presented, all with motive, opportunity, and means to have committed the crime.  The reader needs to sort through this increasingly tangled story to try to figure out what exactly happened.

     Miracle Creek is also a series of extremely well drawn character studies.  The operators of the unlicensed hyperbaric chamber are a Korean immigrant family (the Yoos): a father (the chamber operator), his wife, and their teen-aged daughter.  The author calls on her own immigrant experience to portray these folks as flawed but tremendously sympathetic characters.  The other patients include a medical doctor with infertility, a child with cerebral palsy, and two children with different degrees of autism (and their mothers).  The prosecutor and the defense attorney are central to the story also, even as minor characters. 

     This book also succeeds in painting a very realistic picture of the immigrant experience in America.  These folks come to America looking for opportunity and often find exploitation, misunderstanding, and frustration instead.  The Kims fight prejudice, racial and ethnic stereotyping, and bullying in their workplace and in school.  It is not an easy path and the author questions the risk vs. benefit ratio in deciding to abandon their native country.   

    Finally, the author does a fantastic job of describing the frustrations and difficulties of parenting a special-needs child.  The parents' whole lives are consumed with therapy appointments, treatments and hands-on control of these very needy children.  The tasks take their toll, often causing relationships to splinter.  Is all of this turmoil, self-doubt, and aggravation enough to make a mother want to kill her own child?  Would she really strike a match and intentionally cause a fatal chamber explosion?  That is the question the court is trying to answer and the book addresses so adroitly.  

     This book intrigued me from the very start.  I am a retired hyperbaric physician and have experience as a hyperbaric facility accreditation surveyor, so I am very familiar with the risks of hyperbaric therapy, especially in unlicensed, non-hospital affiliated settings.  The author certainly did her homework in that regard and understands the issues quite well.

     This is a very well written book which is entertaining as well as informative.   It is very deserving of the Edgar Award it was awarded in April of 2020 as the Best First Mystery Novel.

Book Review: A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

A Good Neighborhood

Author: Therese Anne Fowler

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Date of Publication: March 10, 2020

Pages: 320

     This is a novel for our times.  It is set in a bucolic racially integrated neighborhood in a classic Southern city (the author lives in Raleigh, North Carolina).  When intolerable nouveau-riche white people invade with their gentrification and scorched earth attitude towards the environment, conflict arises.  The characters are a bit stereotypical, but that sets the stage for the struggles which ensue.  The basic conflict involves a stately oak tree which is irreparably damaged when a huge home is built next door.  Racial, class, religious, age discriminations, and unfounded fear add dimension to and accelerate the tensions between neighbors.  

     About half way through this book, I couldn't decide whose story it was.  Was it the story of Valerie Alston-Holt, a college professor who happens to also be a black single mother with a talented, mixed-race teenaged son?  (She also owns the home with the oak tree.)  Was it the story of Xavier, her gifted musician-son who has earned a prestigious college scholarship?  Was it the story of Brad Whitman, the narcissistic good old boy who tears down an older home and builds the McMansion next to Valerie, in the process destroying her pastoral back yard?  Was it the story of Juniper, Brad's step-daughter who is drawn to her new neighbor, Xavier, like a moth to a flame despite the Purity Promise she has made at her evangelical church?  After reaching the book's heartbreaking conclusion, I realized that this is OUR story: America's story.  It's the story of what happens when events transpire based on false assumptions, age-old stereotypes, and ingrained prejudices.  It reminds me a bit of Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere, in that the underlying theme is race, but so much more is layered into the story.  Hypocrisy abounds, self-centered agendas rule, and the common good gets thrown under a bus.

 

     The author uses an interesting technique: she introduces some chapters with unnamed omniscient third person narrators.  This Greek chorus of un-named neighbors are witnessing events unfold while trying not to be involved.  Some narrations are told with a retrospective feel, hinting at the story's eventual outcome. The interesting effect which this technique has is that it makes the reader feel a part of the neighborhood.  It makes you think "What would I be thinking or doing if this was going on down my street?"

     A Good Neighborhood is an excellent book.  It has a terrible sense of dread which propels you through the chapters.  The writing is crisp and economical - no wasted words.  The story really is a parable for our times.  There is much here to make the reader stop and ponder.  It makes you look at your own "good neighborhood" in a different light.  It is one of those books which entertains but at the same time teaches.  It is remarkable.  

Book Review: God by Reza Aslan

     

    

God: A Human History

 Author: Reza Aslan

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Date of Publication: April 9, 2019

Pages: 320

     

 

      God: A Human History is a profound look at the depiction of he Divine since humans evolved and began recording things.  The author has a talent for taking complicated historical, archaeological and religious concepts and making them understandable to the non-academic.  The other attractive feature of this book is that the author shares his own personal faith journey and how he arrived at his current personal view of the divine.  

     In the Introduction, Aslan states that it is NOT the purpose of the book to prove the existence of God.  Belief in a divine being is faith, which the author elaborates is a personal choice for each of us.  What he tries to do in this book is to show how we have always tried to humanize the divine.  In fact, he states: “The entire history of human spirituality can be viewed as one long, interconnected, ever-evolving, and remarkably cohesive effort to make sense of the divine by giving it our emotions and our personalities….  In short, by making God us.”

     The book is divided into three parts: The Embodied Soul, The Humanized God, and What Is God?  In the first section, the author analyzes cave drawings found in Europe and identifies the earliest image ever found of God (the Sorcerer image from the Paleolithic Era found in France).  This and other drawings lead researchers to conclude that our ancestors shared an animistic belief that all living things are interconnected, that they all share in the same universal spirit.  This Sorcerer also represents the “God of the Beasts”, a concept which arose in multiple primitive cultures simultaneously.  The scientific debate regarding the origin of religion or religious thought began in earnest in the nineteenth century.  This coincided with Darwin’s introduction of concepts such as “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest.”  Is the development of religion an evolutionary adaptation?  The debate amongst anthropologists, social and other scientists continues today.  There is no doubt, however, that a “religious impulse” is present across many cultures and societies and developed in these different scenarios at similar paces.  The concept of a “soul” was the first religious belief which developed in humans.  The origin of our religious impulse, then is the result of “our ingrained, intuitive, and wholly experiential belief that we are, whatever else we are, embodied souls.”  The universal belief in the existence of the soul, then, “led to the concept of an active, engaged, divine presence that underlies all of creation.”  This concept of the divine presence was gradually personalized and eventually gave way to the single divine personality we know today as God.

     The second section of the book, “The Humanized God,” shows how different faith traditions added layers of human characteristics to their concept of the Divine.  Aslan concludes by saying “that what began as an unconscious cognitive impulse to fashion the divine in our image – to give it our soul – gradually became, over the next ten thousand years of spiritual development a conscious effort to make the gods more and more human like – until, at last, God became literally human.”  It is fascinating the way the author shows us cultures, such as the Greeks, who developed “lofty persons” or high gods and lesser gods, each representing some aspect of human nature.  He also introduces the concept of politicomorphism, or the divinization of earthly politics.  Aslan states: “In each case, in every empire, and throughout all of Mesopotamia, as politics on earth changed, the politics of heaven changed to match.  Just as in the face of fear and terror, the free citizens of Mesopotamia’s independent city states abandoned their primitive democracy and  voluntarily handed absolute power to their kings, so, too, did the citizens of heaven make one or another of the gods the unchallenged ruler over the rest.  Theology shifted to conform to reality, and the heavens became an amplified projection of the earth.”

     The third section of the book: “What is God?” consists of three chapters: “God is One”, “God is Three” and “God is All”.  In the first of these chapters Aslan adroitly explains the development of the concept of monotheism, tracing the Hebrew God back to Abraham and through Moses.  In the second chapter we learn of the conundrum of early Christianity: was Jesus fully human, fully divine, or both?  If He is divine, how does that reconcile with the Jewish tradition of monotheism?  The divinity of Jesus is broached in the Gospel of John and reconciled by the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E. and, finally, in the writings of Augustine of Hippo.  The concept of the Trinity was born: God is eternal and unchanging, but nevertheless exists in three forms: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  All three share the same measure of divinity and all three existed at the beginning of time.  As Aslan states: “And if this idea causes confusion, if it defies logic and reason, if it seems to contradict the very definition of God, then it is simply the task of the believer to accept it as a mystery and move on.”  Aslan further opines that this humanization of the divine in the concept of the Trinity put Christianity on a collision course with the final monotheistic tradition which would come about 100 years later: Islam.  The third chapter, “God is All” is a concise summary of the rise of Islam and Muhammad’s return to the monotheism of the Jewish tradition.  To Muhammad, God is indivisible, and further, Muhammad attempted to dehumanize the divine.  Islam has no images or caricatures of God.  The Quran does not proclaim that humans are made in God’s image and Muslims deny the concept of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus.  Aslan then goes on to describe the development of Sufism, a mystical version of Islam.  In Sufism, God is recognized as inseparable with His creation, creating a form of pantheism (God is everywhere).  He goes on to state: “These Sufis were claiming unity with the divine,  Indeed, for most Sufis, the mistake of Christianity lies not in violating the indivisible nature of God by transforming God into a human being;  rather, it lies in believing that God is only one particular human being and no other.  According to Sufism, if God is truly indivisible, then God is all beings, and beings are God.”  He concludes with “God is not the creator of everything that exists.  God is everything that exists.

   In his Conclusion, Aslan makes the case for his pantheism, which he came to through Sufism.  He reiterates the main themes of the book: the universal primitive belief in a “soul” separate from our physical selves which led to our belief in a divine being; the propensity to humanize this divine being as evidenced by multiple independent cultures; the development of the concept of monotheism which was reconciled with the divine/human Jesus of Nazareth through the evolution of the concept of the Trinity; the return to “true” monotheism and rejection of the Trinity and divinity of Jesus by Muhammad; and finally, the idea of pantheism (God is present in all of His Creation) exhibited by the pantheism of Sufism.  This long and winding road actually mirrors the author’s own spiritual journey as he notes in the conclusion.    

Book Review: The Last Stone by Mark Bowden

The Last Stone

Author: Mark Bowden

Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Date of Publication: April 2, 2019

Pages: 304

     I have vague recollections of the F.B.I. and the Bedford, Virginia, Sheriff's office conducting searches and excavating some private land in Thaxton in 2014.  I remembered that it was in relation to a cold case from Maryland in the mid-1970s, but I did not remember the details or the conclusion.  Mark Bowden, the author of such classics as Blackhawk Down and Killing Pablo, has written the definitive narrative of this compelling story.

     Bowden was a fledgling newspaper reporter in 1975 when two young sisters, ages 10 and 12 disappeared from the Wheaton Mall in Montgomery County, Maryland (a suburb of Washington, D.C.).  John Lyon, the father of the two girls (Katherine and Sheila) was a popular D.C. area radio personality and the hunt for the girls and the mystery of what happened to them captured the attention of the entire area.  Although exhaustive searches were conducted and a multitude of leads were followed, the case was never solved and there was no closure for the family.  Bowden was haunted by it over the years.  He was intent on following up on it when the story gained new life in 2013.

      Credit goes to a group of Maryland investigators who in 2013 went back through the Lyons case with a fine-toothed comb.  They had a person who they thought might be connected and were looking for any details which would link that person to the unsolved crime.  What they found instead was a peculiar witness statement from an 18-year-old boy named Lloyd Welch who went to the police 5 days after the girls' disappearance.  This teen claimed to have seen the girls leaving the mall with a man.  This statement was discounted at the time as non-credible.  Following up on the teen who gave the statement, these investigators located him and found a man with a long criminal record who was currently incarcerated in Delaware for child molestation.  Photos of this man as a teen were eerily similar to a composite sketch from 1975 of a young man seen in the mall talking to Sheila and Kate Lyon.

     The Lyon case was complicated over and above the age of the case.  There were no bodies, no crime scene, and no other forensic evidence.  These investigators began a three-year-long interrogation of Lloyd Welch.  Welch turned out to be an inveterate liar.  He cooperated with the investigation to a point, but always spinning a narrative which put him in the clear.  These detectives ferreted through the disinformation and followed up every detail revealed by Welch.  As time went on, Welch implicated many family members, including his father, an uncle, and a nephew.  The Welch family had cousins in Thaxton on Taylor's Mountain.  Lloyd Welch along with his girlfriend and his father visited this family farm after the Lyon sisters' disappearance and there were various reports from Virginia family members about a large bonfire and a bloody duffle bag being destroyed in the fire. 

     Eventually a joint investigation by the Maryland detectives, the Bedford Sheriff's office and the F.B.I. resulted in indictments and a trial.  Unfortunately, even with this exhaustive work by law enforcement, many questions about the fate of the Lyon sisters remain.

     Bowden discusses the psychological toll this investigation took on the detectives who were so invested in finding the truth and were constantly deceived by Welch. The book does not delve into the crime's effect on the Lyon family, except to note that the one remaining sibling, an older brother, went into law enforcement.  This book gets a bit tedious at times, many long stretches being basically transcripts of the interview tapes with Lloyd Welch.   It is fascinating, though, to see the dogged determination and old-fashioned detective work performed by the four Maryland investigators: Dave Davis, Chris Homrock, Mark Janney, and Katie Leggett.  In these days of  DNA evidence and genetic genealogy, they were able to piece together a case using psychology, hunches, and intuition to come to at least a partial resolution of the Lyon sisters' disappearance.  Central Virginians will enjoy reading this if, like me, they have recollections of the case but want to know the whole story.  The Last Stone is a reminder that we live in a dangerous, treacherous world and evil still lurks about even in the most unexpected places. 

Book Review: Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan

Last Night at the Lobster

Author: Stewart O’Nan

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)

Date of Publication: November 1, 2007

Pages: 160

Some authors write great epics about heroic people.  Others write about ordinary people in extra-ordinary circumstances.  I’ve always admired authors who could tell stories about ordinary people and their every-day lives and make those stories interesting.  It’s an added bonus if the author can make those same stories humorous, poignant and thought provoking at the same time.  Anne Tyler is one of those authors.  So is Stewart O’Nan.  In this novel Stewart O’Nan creates a culture of average lower middle class workers and restaurant customers who collectively tell an all too familiar story of displacement, insecurity and anxiety.  He introduces these characters quickly but deftly and uses dialogue to help us know and understand them like they were old friends. 

Last Night at the Lobster is O’Nan’s twelfth novel.  He also has several non-fiction titles to his credit, including one he co-wrote with Stephen King about the Boston Red Sox.  The author grew up in Pittsburgh, went to undergraduate school at Boston University and now lives in Connecticut.  Small-town New England is the setting for this wonderful short novel.

The novel describes closing night for a marginally successful Red Lobster just off of an interstate highway in Connecticut.  Upper management has decided to close the restaurant instead of spending what it would take to remodel it.  The story is told by the Lobster’s long-time manager, Manny DeLeon.  Manny takes great pride in “his” restaurant and although he is grateful that he has been offered another job, he is not looking forward to the demotion to assistant manager at a new Olive Garden. 

The novel opens with Manny parking his dilapidated Buick Regal in the Lobster parking lot and smoking a joint before opening.  A major snowstorm is beginning as well.  Manny has to deal with his disgruntled employees, some of whom have been let go and four of which are following Manny to the Olive Garden.  There are petty jealousies among the waitresses and major attitude problems with the kitchen staff.

The rest of this short novel (or long short story) details the frustrations and disasters which occur on this last evening.  A large office party comes in and neither waitress wants them because large parties are notoriously bad tippers.  Two women have lunch with a totally undisciplined toddler.  The final blow comes right before closing when a busload of Japanese tourists come in to use the bathroom (the bus driver claims that they all got dysentery at a Red Lobster farther south on the interstate).

All the while Manny has to juggle a minimal inventory, malfunctioning equipment, a blizzard and employee insurrection.  Few of you know this about me, but I abandoned a career in the restaurant business to pursue medicine.  I had rocketed through the fast food industry and was the “Special Whopper” bench guy at the Falls Church Burger King when I realized there had to be a better way to make a living.  While in college I also worked for a year or so at Blackie’s House of Beef at 22^nd and M Streets in D.C. (Anyone ever go there?  Remember the blue cheese and crackers before dinner?).   I can recognize some of my own restaurant experiences in this melancholy, but at times hilarious, novel. 

Last Night at the Lobster does have a purpose other than pure entertainment, however.  I think that the value of the book is that it points out the comfort of familiarity and the reassurance of routine.  The closing of this restaurant rocks Manny’s world, as well as that of all of the other characters in the book, including the regular customers.  Uncertainty and change do not always bring out the best in people, as this book demonstrates quite well.  One reviewer calls Last Night at the Lobster “a perfectly observed slice of working class life.”  This book was written and published long before this current economic crisis and job loss.  However, the author creates very real characters and uses dialogue superbly to tell a fabulous fable for our times. 

(Note: This Review was originally published in "LamLight", the physician newsletter for the Lynchburg Academy of Medicine in 2008)