Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History (W.W. Norton, $25.95) is a fine and serious book, even though the title may lead some readers to wonder what it could possibly be about. Far from an x-rated treatment of the subject, it is a highly readable and fascinating documentation of how an essential part of the human anatomy has been altered and harmed by environmental degradation. Florence Williams, a respected environmental reporter, discovered while breast-feeding her child that she had a high percentage of a toxin called perchlorate in her breast milk. This prompted her to do more research (it turns out most women have perchlorate and a lot of other bad stuff in their mammary glands) that explores the history and evolution of breasts, including the early popularity of silicon implants to a frightening rise in breast cancer cases among U.S. servicemen.
In God’s Hotel (Riverhead, $27.95), her evocative, unvarnished, and brilliant writing debut, doctor and medical historian Victoria Sweet traces her evolution as a medical practitioner caring for society’s poorest and most downtrodden. Her experiences as a physician at one of America’s last almshouses, along with her studies of pre-modern medicine, challenge us to consider more honestly how the essence of diagnosing, treating, and caring for patients is too often devalued by modern medicine. Told through the stories of her patients, God’s Hotel is at once deeply personal, highly entertaining, and above all, important.
Justin Torres’s slender, spare debut novel is the story of three mixed-race brothers growing up amid the chaos of their dysfunctional family in New York. The prose is clean, evocative, and purposeful, recounting the boys’ coming-of-age experiences in a series of vignettes. We The Animals (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $18) manages to tackle the underside of family life, the complexities of sibling relationships, and a few other social taboos with emotion at once raw and deeply touching. I loved this book and am excited to have been introduced to Justin Torres, an exciting and talented new addition to the literary scene.
