The Open Heart Club, Gabriel Brownstein
The Open Heart Club, Gabriel Brownstein
List: $31.99 | Sale: $22.40
Club: $15.99

The Open Heart Club
A Story about Birth and Death and Cardiac Surgery

Author: Gabriel Brownstein

Narrator: Gabriel Brownstein

Unabridged: 12 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 10/22/2019


Synopsis

This absorbing and poignant book is not merely the story of one writer's flawed heart. It is a history of cardiac medicine, a candid personal journey, and a profound reflection on mortality.
Born in 1966 with a congenital heart defect known as the tetralogy of Fallot, Gabriel Brownstein entered the world just as doctors were learning to operate on conditions like his. He received a life-saving surgery at five years old, and since then has ridden wave after wave of medical innovation, a series of interventions that have kept his heart beating.
The Open Heart Club is both a memoir of a life on the edge of medicine's reach and a history of the remarkable people who have made such a life possible. It begins with the visionary anatomists of the seventeenth century, tells the stories of the doctors (all women) who invented pediatric cardiology, and includes the lives of patients and physicians struggling to understand the complexities of the human heart. The Open Heart Club is a riveting work of compassionate storytelling, a journey into the dark hinterlands between sickness and health lit by bright moments of humor and inspiration.

About Gabriel Brownstein

Gabriel Brownstein is an associate professor of English at St. John's College. His short stories have been published in The Harvard Review, Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope: All Story, and Glimmer Train. He won the PEN/Hemingway Award for his collection of stories, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Apt 3W, and his 2005 novel The Man from Beyond was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Alissa on May 17, 2019

NOTE: I received a free Advance Reader's Copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. If there was ever a target audience for this book, it was me -- I also was born with a congenital heart defect, and as I read the book I realized that the author and I have seen several of the......more

Goodreads review by Valentina on January 06, 2020

I honestly, sincerely loved this book with all of my heart. As a person with a Congenital Heart Defect (CHD) like Gabriel Brownstein, I found a lot of value in his research and lived experience. This book is a hybrid of the scientific history and a memoir. I learned so much reading this book. I had n......more

Goodreads review by Nichole on February 19, 2020

The Open Heart Club by Gabriel Brownstein is the first book (I've seen at least) that gives readers not just a glimpse of life with CHD but a comprehensive view of how open heart surgery got to where it is now. You learn more than just the author's story but you learn the story of many more children......more

Goodreads review by Nancy on May 25, 2020

In this book, the author has woven a tale of his personal struggle with a serious heart defect (tetrology of Fallot or "blue baby" syndrome) with the larger story of the history of cardiac knowledge and surgery. He was among the first generation of children who have been able to live into adulthood......more

Goodreads review by Colm on November 22, 2021

I’m gonna come back to it after therapy. But I don’t recommend this book for anybody who knows they have lingering trauma. I’d be curious to hear what other People lucky enough to have multiple open-heart surgeries thought of the book. I guess I’m not brave enough to face his book YET. But I will be......more