Reimagining Chronic Illness
by Meghan O'Rourke
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2022
336 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
A landmark exploration of one of the most consequential and mysterious issues of our time: the rise of chronic illness and autoimmune diseases.
A silent epidemic of chronic illnesses afflicts tens of millions of Americans: these are diseases that are poorly understood, frequently marginalized, and can go undiagnosed and unrecognized altogether. Renowned writer Meghan O'Rourke delivers a revelatory investigation into this elusive category of "invisible" illness that encompasses autoimmune diseases, post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, and now long COVID, synthesizing the personal and the universal to help all of us through this new frontier.
Drawing on her own medical experiences as well as a decade of interviews with doctors, patients, researchers, and public health experts, O'Rourke traces the history of Western definitions of illness, and reveals how inherited ideas of cause, diagnosis, and treatment have led us to ignore a host of hard-to-understand medical conditions, ones that resist easy description or simple cures. And as America faces this health crisis of extraordinary proportions, the populations most likely to be neglected by our institutions include women, the working class, and people of color.
Blending lyricism and erudition, candor and empathy, O'Rourke brings together her deep and disparate talents and roles as critic, journalist, poet, teacher, and patient, synthesizing the personal and universal into one monumental project arguing for a seismic shift in our approach to disease. The Invisible Kingdom offers hope for the sick, solace and insight for their loved ones, and a radical new understanding of our bodies and our health.
"With a poet's sensibility, journalist's rigor, and patient's personal investment, O'Rourke sheds light on the physical and mental toll of having a mysterious chronic illness...[she] shirks a tidy recovery story and instead mines her abjection, astonishment, and vulnerability—and the radical illness writings of Alphonse Daudet, Alice James, and Audre Lorde—to offer a stunningly raw account of living with the existential complexities of a sickness that 'never fully resolves.' Readers will be left in awe." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"An affecting portrayal of how we view disease, experience illness, and search for healing." - Booklist (starred review)
"[A] personal and deeply moving exploration of life with chronic illness...[The Invisible Kingdom] may serve as an affirmation that people living with chronic illness are not alone...both moving and educational." - Library Journal (starred review)
"Tormented for years by enervating symptoms, the author spent most of her 30s dealing with—and trying to understand—chronic illness...Emotionally compelling and intellectually rich, particularly for those with a personal connection to the issue." - Kirkus Reviews
"The Invisible Kingdom is a vivid account of the lived experience of chronic illness. Meghan O'Rourke exposes a system of thought in which people with poorly understood illnesses are dismissed and disbelieved, blamed for their own suffering, and left to take desperate risks in pursuit of treatment. Crucially, her perspective offers insight into how we can do better." – Eula Biss, author of Having and Being Had
"O'Rourke's honest and insightful account of chronic pain is at once a page-turner and an education in cutting-edge science and the history of ideas. I couldn't put it down." – Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project
"In this urgent and beautifully written book, Meghan O'Rourke lays siege to one of the last taboos in medicine: the chronic illnesses that govern the daily lives of millions of people, but are rarely acknowledged. As we confront the long-term impacts of COVID-19, O'Rourke's lyrical analysis couldn't come at a better time." – Michael Specter, New Yorker staff writer and author of Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives
This information about The Invisible Kingdom was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Meghan O'Rourke is the author of The Long Goodbye and the poetry collections Sun in Days, Once, and Halflife. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and other awards, she is the editor of the Yale Review. Her writing appears in the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, the New York Times, and more.
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