This past week once again I haven’t done much reading of books. However, today I did finish Down From Troy: A Doctor Comes of Age by Richard Selzer, former professor of surgery at Yale Medical School, about which I talked last week.
In brief, on my scale of 1 to 5, the 300-page book, published in 1992, was a solid 3 and is definitely worth picking up a copy at the library like I did. I believe he has written better books, most notably Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery and then Taking the World in for Repairs. I have read both of them and believe they were better written and more engaging than this one.
That said, this one had its moments, especially in his brutal retelling of a childhood in the town of Troy, N.Y, which when he was growing up, was a town of brothels. He even recounts his own first visit to a prostitute there at the age of 17 and later a malpractice suit against him (that he won when the case was dropped) as well as almost committing euthanasia on a man suffering from AIDs. Personally, though, I think where the story was strongest was in his relating about his life with his father, a surgeon himself, and his mother. I would have liked to have seen more of that aspect of his life, or perhaps the other incidents cut away from the story.
Many of the chapters were essays in various magazines over the years and felt like they were slap-dashed together, not really making a cohesive whole. In his previous books, the reader knew that coming in, but it wasn’t presented as an autobiography or a science textbook. Instead, it reminded me of vignetttes he told about different cases, akin to Oliver Sacks’ writing.
If one were to start reading Selzer’s work, I wouldn’t recommend one begin with this book, instead try the other two I’ve mentioned.
So what did you read during today’s Sunday Salon for those of you that participated? For those of you that did not, what have you read lately that you would recommend?
