Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This unique hybrid of memoir and science writing offers a remarkably intimate portrait of a British neuroscientist confronted with the tangible experience of modern science. McKernan was working for a major pharmaceutical company when her father became ill with a mysterious infection, and she repeatedly draws on her scientific training as she describes her father's illness and eventual death, taking refuge in the knowledge of what biology and neuroscience can now explain while wrestling with the questions still left unanswered. As a memoirist, McKernan holds nothing back, sharing her experiences both as a devoted daughter and as a scientist; the result is hugely compelling, nimbly shifting back and forth from micro to macro (she juxtaposes, for instance, a biological description of cell necrosis with the emotional consequences of watching a loved one slip away day by day). A reader will turn the last page with a clear sense of what modern science can tell us about life, death and consciousness, but the knowledge almost seems incidental; what sticks most is the nuanced and wrenchingly real experience of loss that no amount of scientific knowledge can buffer. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
