Author:
James McManus
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Learn moreA wild ride through the dark heart of American health and health care, plus sex, drugs, and stem-cell wars.
PHYSICAL is the story of a hard-living, happily married, middle-aged American (the author) who gets a three-day "executive checkup" at the Mayo Clinic and is thereby forced to confront his mortality, not to mention glove-wearing doctors and the pair of dominatrix-esque technicians who supervise his stress test quite strictly. James McManus must understand his revised actuarial odds in the light of his not-so-long-lived forebears and the fact that his youngest children are only six and five years old. He has to survive his own cardiovascular system, inherited habits, and genetic handicaps long enough to see Bea and Grace into adulthood. But with so much at stake, and in spite of his terror of death, he may not have the willpower to follow the Mayo clinicians' advice.
On a related health front, McManus's twenty-nine-year-old daughter, Bridget, has lived with juvenile diabetes since she was four, and the Bush Administration's opposition to the stem-cell research that could save her life makes him feel like he "might have to do something rash." Meanwhile, should he have a vasectomy? Or try for another child, having lost his only son? How much longer will he be able to perform such manly feats without Viagra? Is his grateful wife sleeping with the brilliant opthalmological surgeon who saved their daughter's vision?
PHYSICAL negotiates the political and medical forks in the labyrinth of our health care system and calls for sanity and enlightenment in the stem-cell research wars. It's a no-holds-barred, wrenching, often hilarious portrait of the looming mortality of a privileged generation that can't believe the party's winding down, if not over.
James McManus is a novelist and poet, most recently winner of the Peter Lisagor Award for sports journalism. He teaches writing and comparative literature at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, including a course on the literature and science of poker. He is the author of Positively Fifth Street.
Patrick Frederic has appeared in various films, including 200 Cigarettes, Another Bed, and The Big Easy. His television work includes guest roles on Chappelle’s Show, Law & Order, and Saturday Night Live. On stage, he has appeared in such shows as Perfect Crime, Measure for Measure, and Sex, Religion, Politics. Patrick's audiobook work includes reading James McManus' Physical, Max Barry's Jennifer Government, and Timothy Naftali's George H. W. Bush: The American Presidents Series.
Audiobook details
Narrator:
Patrick Frederic
ISBN:
9781593978112
Length:
7 hours 42 minutes
Language:
English
Publisher:
Macmillan Audio
Publication date:
December 27, 2005
Edition:
Unabridged
Reviews
“Irresistible . . . His prose is flashy, funny, and unexpectedly erudite . . . the writer's equivalent of a royal flush.” —Time on Positively Fifth Street
“Exhilarating . . . As tension-packed as any thriller . . . A great story. James McManus bet big and won.” —The New York Times Book Review (cover review) on Positively Fifth Street
“Astounding . . . Wildly entertaining.” —Men's Journal on Positively Fifth Street
“An engaging portrait of the tournament from the inside. It's made all the more effective by the author's own reading. His voice has a touch of weariness that helps color passages about the almost endless hours at the poker table. Because McManus is a novelist, he has a strong sense of pacing. And because he is a poet, he is adept at effective word choice. Both are especially effective in the audio version of his book.” —AudioFile magazine on Positively Fifth Street
“Highly rewarding, an entertaining, informative and dramatic yarn, full of twists and turns and sweaty palms, read all the more convincingly by an author who's not just acting the part.” —Dallas Morning News on Positively Fifth Street