A Change of Heart: A Memoir (Mass Market Paperback)

by Claire Sylvia (Author), William Novak (Author) "SEVERAL YEARS AGO, as I lay dying from a rare and fatal disease, my chest was sawed open and my heart and lungs were cut..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Mary Gohlke, Claire Sylvia (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Sylvia gets more than a new heart after a transplant operation: she finds she has acquired the tastes and desires of the 18-year-old boy who was her donor.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
After a heart and lung transplant operation, dancer Claire Sylvia discovered that new organs were not the only thing she inherited. Never having liked such foods as beer and chicken nuggets, she suddenly started craving them. After an extraordinary dream, she seeks out the family of her donor--a teenaged boy who died in a motorcycle accident--and learns that it is indeed possible for two souls to merge in one body. Ads in "People, Life" and "Redbook".

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; Reprint edition (March 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446604690
• ISBN-13: 978-0446604697
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #370,610 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Personal experience, July 25, 2001

A Kid's Review

I've known Claire Silva for many years. I knew her well before her body started to fail. This book is her reality. It unfolded just as she states. If her story seems amazing, consider how it must have felt to her, miraculous, beyond belief. She is ever so rapidly dying, then a chance to receive a heart and lung, (the first in New England, "experimental surgery") suddenly, out-of-the-blue. Friends rush her to Yale, New Haven, CT. she receieves a new life. New heart, new lung, more than that. New cells, old memories. The dreams begin. She has incorporated new celllular tissue, new DNA residue and the doctors have warned her that the tissue could be rejected. Incredibly,the memories of a dead young man begin to flood her dreams, her senses. I met Claire after the surgery. We spent quite a bit of time together. A change of person and heart had taken place. Read this book and trust that there are some things that science and medicine may never unravel. Draw from your own knowledge, intuition and experience. Your reality is within you. Claire chose to share this experience. Her experience is something that will cause you to think about how you live your own life. It will cause you to realize how special and extra-ordinary you are as a result of your own unique genetic, societal, physical and psychological composition. It may cause you to dream and wonder and question the courage you fail to exhibit to the world for fear of being ridiculed. Finally, this is a book about a woman with the courage and the desire to live and the willpower and curiosity to explore and investigate her changed life and her changed reality. 143

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, January 30, 2000

By	Jan McLaughlin (Waterford, Pa. USA) - See all my reviews

I have recently re-read "A Change of Heart". I congratulate Claire on her fortitude to WRITE the book in the first place. I worked for 20 years as a Surgical Nurse, and heard MANY stories like hers. In most cases, they were instantly dismissed by the current Medical Paradigm. Like her Cardiac Surgeon, their biggest fear is dealing with something that is beyond their present range of knowledge. I am thankful that the current state of medicine is being forced to change. We, who have worked in 'the system' know that although some of it works, the majority DOES NOT ! It happens that most of us who have been in medicine, know that it does not have all the answers. In looking truthfully at stories like these and the near-death research,we know that Western medical practice is being forced to change. I see so many things that are of great service, however, too many people cannot participate because of rising medical costs, and lack of Insurance to cover such help. As a 'Drop Out' from that system,I applaud the research into new vistas. I hope allof the readers of this book do so with an open mind, and HEART.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Come share Claire's true-life heart/lung transplant mystery!, April 29, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: A Change of Heart (Hardcover)

This is the true story of Claire Sylvia's heart/lung transplant performed as Yale-New Haven's first such operation back in 1988. Beyond being an excellent narrative of an inspiring transplant experience, her story develops into a deeper scientific mystery as she encounters her young donor through dreams and changes in her life. Later, Claire is able to verify that such traits and dreams have a basis in real life when she meets her donor, Tim, through his family. Claire does not claim to fully understand her experience, but shares with us the facts as they became known to her. Along with a series of less spectacular, but similar stories from other transplant recipients, the book offers a short summary of scientific and other disciplines' current findings in this area. While each reader will draw their own conclusion as to the validity of Claire's story, all will leave this book with an expanded awareness of the mystery of life as we currently understand it.