Mercies in Disguise, Gina Kolata
Mercies in Disguise, Gina Kolata
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Mercies in Disguise
A Story of Hope, a Family's Genetic Destiny, and the Science That Rescued Them

Author: Gina Kolata

Narrator: Andrea Gallo

Unabridged: 8 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 03/21/2017


Synopsis

New York Times science reporter Gina Kolata follows a family through genetic illness and one courageous daughter who decides her fate shall no longer be decided by a genetic flaw. The phone rings; the doctor has the results. "Are you ready Amanda?" The two people Amanda Baxley loves the most had begged her not to be tested. But she had to find out. If your family carried a mutated gene that foretold brutal illness and you could find out if you inherited it, would you do it? Would you confront it, accepting whatever answer came? Or ignore it while you could? In Mercies in Disguise, acclaimed New York Times reporter and bestselling author Gina Kolata tells the story of the Baxleys, an upstanding family in small town South Carolina. Many of them were doctors, but still, they are struck down by an inscrutable illness. Finally, they discover the cause of the disease after a remarkable sequence of providential events. Meanwhile, science, progressing for 50 years along a parallel track, handed the Baxleys a question-not a cure, but a blood test that would reveal who had the gene for the disease. Science offered another dilemma-fertility specialists had created a way to spare the children. A work of narrative nonfiction in the tradition of the The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Mercies in Disguise tells the story of a family that took matters into its own hands when medicine could not help. It's a story of a family dealing with unspeakable tragedy without being driven apart. It is the story of a young woman-Amanda Baxley-who faced the future, determined to find a way to disrupt her destiny.

About Gina Kolata

Gina Kolata is a science writer for the New York Times and the author of five previous books, including Ultimate Fitness, Clone, and the national bestseller Flu. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Barbara on March 23, 2022

One by one, members of the Baxley family of Hartsville, South Carolina - respected members of the devoutly Christian community - were struck by a devastating neurodegenerative illness. The first victim was family patriarch Bill Baxley. Bill's symptoms began with a shuffling walk, which escalated to......more

Goodreads review by Loring on February 26, 2017

Those pesky prions have needed a popular-science storytelling for quite some time. Gina Kolata, arguably the best science and medicine writer at The New York Times, would seem just the person to do it. The problem is, this is not the definitive word on prions. We do get some pre-Prusiner coverage of......more