AHistory of the Present Illness

Louise Aronson has won the Sonora Review Prize, the New Millennium Short Fiction Award, and has received three Pushcart nominations. This is her first collection of stories and introduces a major new voice in literary fictionLike Oliver Sacks and Abraham Verghese's books, A History of the Present Illness is informative, based on personal experience, and addresses topics of current social relevance.The latest in a long tradition of physician authors like Khaled Hosseini and Siddhartha Mukerjee, Aronson reveals universal truths about life and death, love, family, illness, ambition and friends through fictionLouise Aronson has an MFA in fiction and an MD from Harvard Medical School. She has won the Sonora Review prize, the New Millennium Writings short fiction award and has received three Pushcart nominations. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California where she cares for frail older patients and directs the Pathways to Discovery Program, the Northern California Geriatrics Education Center and UCSF Medical Humanities. She lives in San Francisco.A busy doctor juggles an errant teenage daughter and a seriously ill father. An elderly immigrant sacrifices his demented wife's well-being to satisfy his son's authority. A trainee becomes delirious with lack of sleep but must learn how to act, and not react, in the face of suffering. A psychiatrist who advocates for the underserved may herself be crazy. Together these deeply humane linked stories - at once funny and honest, incisive and compassionate - explore the impact of illness on real people's lives and offer a portrait of health and medicine like nothing we have read before. Set in hospitals, offices, nursing homes, prisons, family apartments and out and about in the city, A History of the Present Illness creates a world pulsating with life and introduces a striking new literary voice.LONGLISTED FOR THE FRANK O'CONNOR INTERNATIONAL SHORT STORY AWARD 2013. Funny, honest and compassionate linked stories providing a portrait of health and humanity like nothing we have read before. The human insight medicine brings can form masters of the short story. Louise Aronson proves it again ... These are tales about people, as insightful as Lorrie Moore or Alice MunroA less cute, more truthful version of Grey's AnatomySome of the most startling and memorable stories I've ever read . A fascinating study of our fragile human condition, both physical and emotional. Here is a writer - and a doctor - whose empathy for her people, her characters, springs forth on every pageI devoured the stories . each one is written with a beautifully precise balance of clarity and insight. She combines a doctor's eye with a writer's heart