Thursday, January 13, 2011
Books Holly Tucker's Blood Work: The Next Big Nashville Book?
Posted by Jim Ridley on Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 10:34 AM
That would be Holly Tucker, an associate professor at Vanderbilt University's Center for Medicine, Health and Society as well as a French instructor. Her book Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution, due from Norton in March, is drawing the sort of advance excitement that heralded Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks — i.e., that it's a fascinating slice of medical history, told in uncommonly riveting style.
Already selected by Scientific American and the History Book Club as a Book of the Month, Tucker's secret history of blood transfusion gets a starred rave in the current Publishers Weekly:
In 1667, building on work done in England, Jean-Baptiste Denis, a self-promoting young Frenchman, transfused lamb's blood into a human. His work angered many, including those who believed that the soul was housed in the blood and transfusion was blasphemous; others who clung to bloodletting as a treatment rather than blood transfusions; and those protecting their own scientific reputations from an unknown upstart. When Denis's second transfused patient died suddenly, Denis was accused of murder. Exploring the charge, Tucker unearths compelling evidence that the patient was murdered — by a cabal attempting to discredit Denis. The affair halted all experiments in blood transfusion for 150 years.
Tucker says she'll be participating in the "Writers for the Red Cross" fundraiser coming up in February, with authors across the country donating books, swag and other items for online auction to benefit the American Red Cross. We expect that's just the beginning.
Comments (9)
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I hear you. The description reminded me of a book I loved, Simon Winchester's THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN, another of these real-life behind-the-veils-of-history yarns.
Sold by the "Immortal Life" comparison. That was the most remarkable book I read in 2010.
These are golden days for fans of creative nonfiction. I'm loving David Grann's THE LOST CITY OF Z, and Dan Baum's kaleidoscopic New Orleans study NINE LIVES was a marvel.
Z blew me away. It's an amazing adventure/historical narrative. The ending gave me chills.
Ooo, that does sound good. And gives me hope for my novel of intrigue and radiology.
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