www.MontanasTrailhead.com

I finished this book recently and quickly because I had read a later book by the same author a few weeks ago. As the excerpt from the USA Today review says: “A richly textured portrait of a small Southern town . . . . Immensely moving. In describing his own odyssey as a healer, Verghese displays rare candor and eloquence.”

As I mentioned in the review of the later book,—?sequel or ?prequel—there seem to be a lot of Indian expatriates writing in English these days and putting out a lot of good stories. This one is non-fiction with just enough gory detail to be persuasive. He says he is writing about his own journey but the journeys of his patients are the vehicle that he uses.

Verghese takes us back, gently of course, to the ’80s when the modern day plague of AIDS was gradually coming into the minds of all of us even if we lived in Tennessee or Montana. He didn’t plan on taking care of HIV patients but that is what happened in rural Johnson City, Tennessee. Victims of the plague sought him out because he was willing to see them.

This is a good story and contains a lot of useful recent history of medicine as well as some poignant stories of patients dealing with apparently insoluble problems.