Literature Annotations
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Brown, S., H., ed. |
| Genre | Anthology (Mixed Genres) (214 pp.) |
| Keywords | Abandonment, African-American Experience, Aging, Alcoholism, Cross-Cultural Issues, Death and Dying, Depression, Disability, Doctor-Patient Relationship, Empathy, Family Relationships, Family Relationships, Father-Son Relationship, Freedom, Homicide, Human Worth, Illness and the Family, Love, Medical Advances, Medical Ethics, Medical Ethics, Mental Illness, Native-American Experience, Obesity, Physician Experience, Poverty, Psycho-social Medicine, Psychotherapy, Rape, Society, Suffering, Survival, Trauma, Urban Violence, War and Medicine, Women's Health |
| Summary | This is an anthology of 32 pieces, many directly relating to war and its aftermath, or, in general, kinds of violence humans inflict upon each other and the ensuing suffering: hence the title, "echoes of war." The pieces include short fiction, essay, a dozen poems, and a photo collection. Since none are lengthy, this is a good reader to supplement other longer texts or to serve as an anthology for a reading group. A short essay, "Suggested Longer Readers," mentions some three dozen pivotal topics, including "homecoming" and "sense of identity." |
| Commentary | Editor Suzanne Hunter Brown (Dartmouth) has led a Literature and Medicine reading and discussion group at Vermont's White River Junction Veterans Adminstration Medicine Center since 2005. This is a fine collection, with variety by theme, format, and subject. There are well-known writers (Hardy, Tennyson, Williams), but mostly writers from 1960 onwards, with a blend of men and women, minority and ethinic voices, physicians and nurses. Brown organizes the entries by author's names in alphabetical order, leaving readers to make their own groupings. If I were leading a reading group, I'd suggest: Between Patient and Caregiver, including pieces by John Stone and William Carlos Williams; Damage to Body and Mind, including pieces by Nancy Mairs and Atul Gawande; War, Violence, Bloodlust, including pieces by Thomas Hardy and Andre Dubus, as well as an extraordinary photo collection by Platon of military, veterans, wounded survivors, and family; Multicultural Aspects, including pieces by Wanda Coleman, Louise Erdrich, and Arthur Kleinman; and A Reprise, including Atul Gawande, Flannery O'Connor, and Raymond Carver. The readings are powerful, individually and collectively, and saddening. Will humans ever stop maiming, raping, humiliating, killing each other? |
| Publisher | Maine Humanities Council |
| Edition | 2009 |
| Editors | Suzanne Hunter Brown |
| Place Published | Portland, Maine |
| Miscellaneous | This volume is part of the Maine Humanities Council's initiative "Literature and Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care," a nationwide reading and discussing program (see: www.mainehumanities.org). |
| Annotated by | Carter, III, Albert Howard |
| Date of Entry | 02/23/10 |