University Press Copublishing Division / University of Delaware Press
Pages: 376
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-61149-642-0 • Hardback • July 2017 • $136.00 • (£105.00)
978-1-61149-643-7 • eBook • July 2017 • $129.00 • (£99.00)
Kevin Kerrane is professor of English at University of Delaware.
Acknowledgments
Editor’s Preface
Introduction: “The Writer Richard Selzer: High, Low, and Mighty” by Marie Borroff
Chronology
Prologue
The Pen and the Scalpel
Part 1: Apprenticeship
On the Wire
Jonah and the Whale
A Single Minute of Fear
Fairview
Part 2: Anatomy Lessons
Liver
Bone
How Proudly It Heals: In Praise of the Body Republic
A Mother’s Fury
Leonardo’s Drawings
Flesh Holds the Truth, Mortality
The Corpse
The Ivory Crucifixion
Part 3: Being a Doctor
A Hero in a Rowboat
Emergency Medicine
Mercy
Taking the World in for Repairs
Imelda
Three Doctors: Conan Doyle, Watson, and Me
Reflections on Doctoring
Part 4: Illuminations
At St. Mary’s
Longfellow, Virgil, and Me
Fetishes
Four Appointments with the Discus Thrower
Whither Thou Goest
Risen
Atrium: October 2001
Part 5: Being a Writer
Meditations on Style
Five Finger Exercises
To a Would-Be Doctor/ Writer
Notes for a Writing Workshop
Remembrance of Things
Wounded with Wonder: Richard Selzer Interviewed by Peter Josyph
Part 6: Homage
Afterlife of The Black Swan
A Tale of Two Cities Revisited
Crimean Vespers
Part 7: Diary Entries
Early Entries, Undated
2009
2010
2011
2012
Part 8: Two Unpublished Stories
Half Moon
Mister Stitches
A Richard Selzer Reader is an anthology of short stories, essays, and memoirs that span 45 years of the writing career of author and surgeon Richard Selzer. Selzer, who died in 2016, worked with Kerrane (English, Univ. of Delaware) to create this collection, which also includes selections of Selzer’s diary, short editorial prefaces, and an author biography. The collection is organized around education, for example, medical apprenticeships and anatomy lessons, being a surgeon and being a writer. Starting in the 1960s, Selzer was a surgeon and educator at Yale School of Medicine; in the 1970s he began to publish magazine essays, intended for nonmedical readers, offering insights and reflections on practicing surgery. After he retired from medicine in the 1980s he dedicated himself to writing, publishing 13 books. Selzer is considered a pioneer in the field of medical humanities, which recognizes the humanity and first-person experience of both the patient and the provider in the face of illness, suffering, healing, and dying. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.
— Choice Reviews