2023 Rosenthal Family Foundation Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters • A Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2022 • A Publishers Weekly “Writer to Watch”
In the troubled world of the hospital, where the language of blood tests and organ systems so often hides the heart of the matter, she works her way from one bed to another, from a man dying of substance use and tuberculosis, to a child in pain crisis, to a young woman, fading from confusion to aphasia to death. The long hours and heartrending work begin to blur the lines between her new life as a physician and the lifelong traumas she has fled.
In brilliant, wry, and biting prose, A History of Present Illness is a boldly honest meditation on the body, the hope of healing in the face of total loss, and what it means to be alive.
“A revelation.” –The New York Times
"Brutal and brave, DeForest's novel is one of the best in the ‘making of a doctor’ genre. And its plucky protagonist, casualty and hero, roars a universal truth, ‘We all hurt.’” ―Booklist, starred review
In the troubled world of the hospital, where the language of blood tests and organ systems so often hides the heart of the matter, she works her way from one bed to another, from a man dying of substance use and tuberculosis, to a child in pain crisis, to a young woman, fading from confusion to aphasia to death. The long hours and heartrending work begin to blur the lines between her new life as a physician and the lifelong traumas she has fled.
In brilliant, wry, and biting prose, A History of Present Illness is a boldly honest meditation on the body, the hope of healing in the face of total loss, and what it means to be alive.
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9780316381161
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Publication Date: 04-02-2024
Pages: 176
About the Author
Anna DeForest is a neurologist and palliative care physician in New York City. Her writing has appeared in the Alaska Quarterly Review, the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Paris Review. This is her first novel.