I this book because...
I don’t usually read non-fiction: I prefer characters, plots, and being drawn into another universe. But glowing reviews and the fact that a literary figure, Alice James, was involved: I decided to make an exception.
In short, dear reader, I was blown away. Lunden is not only a fine writer, she has a gripping story to tell, not only of her own struggles with a profit-driven medical system, but also how being a woman makes everything even harder.
Lunden puts the “breakdown” of a caring profession (like medicine) into sharp focus. But thankfully (since I really prefer happy endings), she also suggests ways out of our collective collapse. Read this and try to forgive your doctors, who like you, are just struggling to be human in a runaway capitalist culture.
1 author picked American Breakdown as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
A Silent Spring for the human body, this wide-ranging, genre-crossing literary mystery interweaves the author’s quest to understand the source of her own condition with her telling of the story of the chronically ill 19th-century diarist Alice James—ultimately uncovering the many hidden health hazards of life in America.
When Jennifer Lunden became chronically ill after moving from Canada to Maine, her case was a medical mystery. Just 21, unable to hold a book or stand for a shower, she lost her job and consigned herself to her bed. The doctor she went to for help told her she was “just…