Codeine Diary: True Confessions of a Reckless Hemophiliac [Paperback]

Tom Andrews (Author)

Book Description

When mathematician Tom Andrews slips and breaks his ankle on an icy Ann Arbor street, it is no ordinary fracture: for Andrews, a hemophiliac, the fall begins a "bleed"-that is, the pooling of blood beneath the skin that can cripple a hemophiliac. During his agonizing hospital-bound convalescence, he is doped up on codeine, a drug that sends him spiraling into reveries about his disease and the way he'd combated it with the seemingly self-destructive pursuits of his adolescence. Yet there was a family illness that overshadowed even his: his brother's terminal kidney disorder. In order to get his parents' attention, Andrews threw himself into breaking world records (for hand-clapping), motorcycle racing, competitive skateboarding, punk rocking, and other foolhardy pursuits that only emphasized for him how, in his parents' eyes, he would always be "the healthy son." Unfailingly strange and intense, unremittingly witty, Andrews's book is a memoir that transcends its subject and becomes the story of man's desire to inhabit the world fully no matter what the cost.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At times discursive, Andrews's memoir covers his traumas and triumphs as a poet, teacher, motorcycle racer?and hemophiliac. The triumphs include establishing a mark in the Guinness Book of World Records for continuous clapping (14 hours, 31 minutes) as an 11-year-old and living a full life by "outwitting" his disease. Andrews relates the trauma of various bleeding episodes and the death of an older brother from kidney disease, an event that, according to Andrews, haunts him even more than his own affliction. The book is most involving when explaining the horrors of hemophilia: Andrews (Hymning the Kanawha) reports that 90% of hemophiliacs who received regular blood infusions between 1978 and early 1985 carry HIV (he has remained negative to date). His explanations of the dangers and treatments of "bleeds" are thorough and engrossing, but the narrative loses momentum in sections in which random humor is attempted or trivial conversations are reconstructed. Andrews is adept at expressive phrases and insightful observations, but his effectiveness is sometimes undermined by a lack of focus.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Hemophiliac and Guinness record breaker for hand clapping, Andrews has written a memoir of what it was like growing up as the "healthy" child in the family because of his brother's struggle with an ultimately fatal kidney disease. While recovering from a serious bleed and taking codeine to relieve the pain, Andrews, now a professor at Purdue University and an award-winning poet, began writing a diary that evolved into this memoir, thus the title. He stirs the reader's emotions as he bares his own. However, his rather disjointed mix of humor, pain, and poetic images is not as compelling an account of a journey through illness as Reynolds Price's A Whole New Life (LJ 3/1/94), which Andrews quotes. Neither does it give full insight into hemophilia, as does Elaine DePrince's Cry Bloody Murder (LJ 7/97). Recommended only for large public libraries.?Dixie Jones, Louisiana State Univ. Medical Ctr. Lib., Shreveport
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (August 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 015600657X
• ISBN-13: 978-0156006576
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,674,630 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Andrews' poetic prose is delightful., January 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Codeine Diary : A Memoir (Hardcover)

Andrews provides a glimpse inside the personal space of a poet who happens to be a hemophiliac. _Codeine Diary_ is a carefully wrought memoir that reveals Andrews' passion for language and life, and it is this love of language which makes this uniquely witty and introspective book more than personal. It is good that it was written.
- C.M.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiration for us all, January 6, 2001

By 

MYCROFT (Alexandria, Virginia United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Codeine Diary : A Memoir (Hardcover)

As I read this I entered a world where only 20,000 others are forced to endure in the USA. That world being that of a Hemophiliac. We can never know what suffering is as Mr. Andrews does, but this book has shown us a shocking glimpse of what it's like. I have been awakened from my shallow existence and can now overcome what measly barriers life has given me. Mr. Andrews, thank you for sharing your life with us. I sir take my hat off to you for your courage and wish you nothing but the best of luck in the future! I must also conclude by saying that you are a damn good poet as well, but then again Charles Wright is your mentor. But please do me a favor from now on, try to live a sedentary life for you have much poetry left to write. It would be a shame to deny us of many more years of your wonderful poetry, by risking it all on some reckless adventure. Your life is your own, but remember that you also have a legion of loyal readers that you are now responsible for.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing!, May 18, 2008

By 

J. M. Allison - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Codeine Diary: True Confessions of a Reckless Hemophiliac (Paperback)

Like Mr. Andrews, I have a bleeding disorder. We also share the sad distinction of having to be hospitalized for "bleeds". These are always terrible, trying times.
My god how I wished I'd had this book with me during my last bleed.
Andrews captures the experience perfectly. There is all the fear, the humor, the midnight pleas for more pain medicine, the frustration, the urge to get up and get back to your normal life. It's all there. And without a word wasted.
The loss of Tom Andrews was a tragic moment for poetry, but I will continue to honor his memory by buying as many copies as I can of Codeine Diary (as well as his wonderful poetry collections) and handing them out to everyone I know (especially my patients with bleeding disorders). I know that the world has much to gain from his wise words.