Books By People I Know

I wanted to add to my earlier list of recent reads. The following are two titles written by people I know.

Cherubs in the Land of Lucifer: Personal and Professional Encounters with Death, by Phillip V. Gordon, MD, PhD. This book is about the author's experiences dealing with death both as a doctor and as a young man losing his father. It's not so much a novel as it is a collection of connected episodes and experiences with an interwoven theme. The writing is crisp and fluid, the details are vivid, and the emotion runs strong. The book was written by the husband of HP, my mommy-mentor from Charlottesville. I babysat for HP and Phill's first daughter almost exclusively during her first year, and once or twice after their second daughter came along. Since I left Charlottesville last June, they've added a third child, a boy, to their family. HP and Phill are really awesome people. I met HP when she was volunteering and I was working for the March of Dimes. She was pregnant with her first child, the very grown-up Inwe (elf name), at the time. I'll never forget HP sitting on the floor of the ballroom at the hotel where we were holding Chef's Auction. Here she was, nine months pregnant, ready to give birth any moment -- and she could do the splits! Yoga is good, I think. Phill, her husband, is a neonatologist at UVA. The four of us -- HP, Phill, Wes, and I -- would frequently chat about med school and dogs when they came back from an evening out while Wes and I babysat (or, more accurately, I babysat, and he sat!). Since Wes and I moved to Chicago, HP has been my blogging buddy (http://nothpnowmommy.blogspot.com, then link to her other blogs about her daughters and son) and a voice of understanding and wisdom as I am initiated into the world of being a "doctor's wife." Phill has also started a blog, which you can link to from HP's main site. The first post was very interesting and echoes the kind of writing found in Cherubs. If you're interested in getting a copy of Phill's book, you can find information on HP's website about where to buy it.

The After-Death Room: Journey into Spiritual Activism, by Michael McColly. This is Michael's memoir about coming to terms with his own HIV diagnosis while becoming an HIV/AIDS activist at the national and international level. Michael travelled around the world to South Africa, Thailand, China, and, closer to home, South Chicago to learn about what it means to live with HIV/AIDS and the social implications of this ravaging disease. Michael was my nonfiction writing professor for a class at Northwestern last fall. He's a very cool guy -- a true artist --, and he read us excerpts from his novel. It just released, and I'm waiting for the copy I preordered from Barnes and Noble. I'll let you know how it is after I read it. It promises to be moving, at the very least.