Shattered by his wife's death, and by his own role in it, successful cardiologist Charles Anderson volunteers to assist with earthquake relief in an impoverished Islamic country in a constant state of conflict with its neighbor. But when the refugees he's come to help do not appear and artillery begins to fall in the distance along the border, the story takes an unexpected turn. This haunting, resonant tour de force about one man's desire to live a moral life offers a moving exploration of the tensions between poverty and wealth, the ethics of intervention, the deep cultural differences that divide the world, and the essential human similarities that unite it.

Right of Thirst

Literature & Fiction

Huyler, Frank

United States

Harper-perennial

SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAN MICHALSKI PRIZE FOR LITERATURE Another "pitch-perfect book of short essays" (New York Times Book Review) from the acclaimed author of Blood of Strangers, this one exploring the contemporary practice of medicine from the perspective of a doctor with 25 years of experience in the ER. In the late 1990s, a young physician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, published a stunning memoir of his experiences in the highly charged world of the ER.&nbsp;Presented in a series of powerful, poetic vignettes,&nbsp;The Blood of Strangers&nbsp;became an instant classic. Now, over two decades later, Dr. Frank&nbsp;Huyler delivers another dispatch from the trenches--this time from the perspective of middle age. In portraits visceral, haunting, sometimes surreal,&nbsp;Huyler&nbsp;reveals the gritty reality of medicine practiced on the razor's edge between life and death. From the doomed, like the Iraq vet with a brain full of shrapnel, to the self-destructive, like the young woman who inserts a sewing needle into her heart, to the transcendent, like the homeless Navajo artist whose sketches charm the nurses,&nbsp;Huyler&nbsp;assembles a profound mosaic of human suffering and grace, complemented by episodes from his personal life: the hail that fell the night his wife gave birth, his drive through a snowstorm to see his father in a Colorado&nbsp;ER, the beautiful wedding of his childhood friend with terminal cancer. Melding hard-earned wisdom with a poet's crystalline vision,&nbsp;Huyler&nbsp;evokes the awesome burden of responsibility, the exhaustion, the relief of a costume disco nurse party, and those rare occasions when the confluence of luck and science yield, in the author's words, "moments of breathtaking greatness."&nbsp; White Hot Light&nbsp;offers an unforgettable portrait of a field that illuminates society at its most vulnerable,&nbsp;and its most elemental. &nbsp;

White Hot Light: Twenty-Five Years in Emergency Medicine

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Hailed by The Boston Globe as "a compact, faceted gem that shines with intelligence," this stunning collection offers a startling and moving look at people whose lives are on the line and the men and women who try to keep them from crossing it. These twenty-eight vignettes seamlessly juxtapose visceral portrayals of life-and-death medical situations with lyrical meditations on the world of medicine and the world at large.

The Blood of Strangers: Stories from Emergency Medicine

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Picador

The Laws of Invisible Things: A Novel

When newly qualified doctor Michael Grant makes an error, and a young girl dies unexpectedly in his care, a mysterious chain of events leads him to believe that he may have discovered an entirely new disease. Unable to convince his colleagues, he sets out to gather evidence but is quite unprepared for the direction his quest will take him-into the wilderness of disease, religion and mystery-a journey that will lead him to question not only his belief in the order of the world, but his own place and purpose within it. With real suspense and subtlety, Frank Huyler's first novel is written with the spare precision and grace of his much praised collection about his medical experiences, The Blood of Strangers.

Reminiscent of Chekhov's stories, The Blood of Strangers is a visceral portrayal of a physician's encounters with the highly charged world of an emergency room. In this collection of spare and elegant stories, Dr. Frank Huyler reveals a side of medicine where small moments—the intricacy of suturing a facial wound, the bath a patient receives from her husband and daughter—interweave with the lives and deaths of the desperately sick and injured. The author presents an array of fascinating characters, both patients and doctors—a neurosurgeon who practices witchcraft, a trauma surgeon who unexpectedly commits suicide, a wounded murderer, a man chased across the New Mexico desert by a heat-seeking missile. At times surreal, at times lyrical, at times brutal and terrifying, The Blood of Strangers is a literary work that emerges from one of the most dramatic specialties of modern medicine. This deeply affecting first book has been described by one early reader as "the best doctor collection I have seen since William Carlos Williams's The Doctor Stories."

Genre Fiction

University of California Press

Reminiscent of Chekhov's stories, The Blood of Strangers is a visceral portrayal of a physician's encounters with the highly charged world of an emergency room. In this collection of spare and elegant stories, Dr. Frank Huyler reveals a side of medicine where small moments―the intricacy of suturing a facial wound, the bath a patient receives from her husband and daughter―interweave with the lives and deaths of the desperately sick and injured. The author presents an array of fascinating characters, both patients and doctors―a neurosurgeon who practices witchcraft, a trauma surgeon who unexpectedly commits suicide, a wounded murderer, a man chased across the New Mexico desert by a heat-seeking missile. At times surreal, at times lyrical, at times brutal and terrifying, The Blood of Strangers is a literary work that emerges from one of the most dramatic specialties of modern medicine. This deeply affecting first book has been described by one early reader as "the best doctor collection I have seen since William Carlos Williams's The Doctor Stories."

Medical Books

Administration & Medicine Economics

Hailed by The Boston Globe as "a compact, faceted gem that shines with intelligence," this remarkable and fascinating book offers an honest, startling, deeply moving depiction of the modern emergency room. The twenty-eight vignettes in The Blood of Strangers, all written by a young E.R. physician and writer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, seamlessly juxtapose visceral portrayals of real and unedited hospital situations with perceptive and lyrical meditations on the world of medicine--and the world at large. All students, scholars, and practitioners of emergency medicine will find this stunning account of life, death, work, and reality in the E.R. both haunting and instructive.

Henry Holt Co.

In this suspenseful and finely wrought first novel, a young doctor’s encounter with a mysterious disease leads him to a crossroads between faith and reason Not long into Michael Grant’s first year in his new practice, a young girl in his care unexpectedly dies. He might not have been able to change that outcome, but he didn’t do all in his power to prevent it, either. So when Michael is asked to take on the dead girl’s father as a patient, he feels he must oblige the family’s wishes. Examining the man, Michael notices an unusual pattern—a white, serpentine spiral—on the back of the throat and in his eye. But before a diagnosis can be made, the man is dead, the victim of a mysterious fire, and soon Michael himself is experiencing symptoms of the strange illness.Believing that he has stumbled across a new disease but unable to convince his skeptical colleagues, Michael sets out to gather evidence. His quest takes him into a wilderness of disease, religion, and mystery, and becomes a journey that leads him to question not only his belief in the order of the world but his own place and purpose within it.Lyrical, poetic, and utterly engrossing, The Laws of Invisible Things fully delivers on the promise of Frank Huyler’s critically acclaimed collection of medical stories, The Blood of Strangers.

Henry Holt and Co.

Another "pitch-perfect book of short essays" (New York Times Book Review) from the acclaimed author of Blood of Strangers, this one exploring the contemporary practice of medicine from the perspective of a doctor with 25 years of experience in the ER. In the late 1990s, a young physician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, published a stunning memoir of his experiences in the highly charged world of the ER.&nbsp;Presented in a series of powerful, poetic vignettes,&nbsp;The Blood of Strangers&nbsp;became an instant classic. Now, over two decades later, Dr. Frank&nbsp;Huyler delivers another dispatch from the trenches--this time from the perspective of middle age. In portraits visceral, haunting, sometimes surreal,&nbsp;Huyler&nbsp;reveals the gritty reality of medicine practiced on the razor's edge between life and death. From the doomed, like the Iraq vet with a brain full of shrapnel, to the self-destructive, like the young woman who inserts a sewing needle into her heart, to the transcendent, like the homeless Navajo artist whose sketches charm the nurses,&nbsp;Huyler&nbsp;assembles a profound mosaic of human suffering and grace, complemented by episodes from his personal life: the hail that fell the night his wife gave birth, his drive through a snowstorm to see his father in a Colorado&nbsp;ER, the beautiful wedding of his childhood friend with terminal cancer. Melding hard-earned wisdom with a poet's crystalline vision,&nbsp;Huyler&nbsp;evokes the awesome burden of responsibility, the exhaustion, the relief of a costume disco nurse party, and those rare occasions when the confluence of luck and science yield, in the author's words, "moments of breathtaking greatness."&nbsp; White Hot Light&nbsp;offers an unforgettable portrait of a field that illuminates society at its most vulnerable,&nbsp;and its most elemental.

Essays & Correspondence

Harpercollins

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Huyler, Frank. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Huyler, Frank

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Huyler, Frank. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Right of Thirst

White Hot Light: Twenty-Five Years in Emergency Medicine

The Blood of Strangers: Stories from Emergency Medicine

The Laws of Invisible Things: A Novel

The Blood of Strangers: Stories from Emergency Medicine

The Blood of Strangers: Stories from Emergency Medicine

The Blood of Strangers: Stories from Emergency Medicine

The Laws of Invisible Things: A Novel

White Hot Light: Twenty-Five Years in Emergency Medicine

White Hot Light: Twenty-Five Years in Emergency Medicine