Customer Reviews

The Gifts of the Body

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4 star:		(3)
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Rebecca Brown's THE GIFTS OF THE BODY really cast a spell on me, with its sober delicate style, and its no-nonsense but very humble approach. It is incredibly hard to write about the emotions involved in taking care of people who are sick, but Brown does this by allowing her narrator to remain almost anonymous, and the only way she is revealed is through what she does for people, the simple yet startlingly intimate services she performs for people--from giving baths to cleaning kitchens to just being there to have a meal with them. These acts of kindness, although performed by someone who is paid to be there, become glimpses of hope, just glimpses though, which makes them even more poignant that extravagant "heroic" narratives about "Saving Lives." The narrator is not saving lives, as much as helping people to stay comfortable as the ravages of disease take them past comfort into a terrible region of pain. The sentiments in this book are toned down almost to a purity of spirit: there is deep feeling, but not of the variety most people are used to. The depth comes from the frankness and business-like accuracy of the narrator, the way people come and go, the why finally she just has to quit for a while just to stay sane. This book is amazing, and should be read by everyone, but especially by people who work with people who are disabled, sick, who need care.

As a respite worker, I picked this book up not expecting the author to "get it right." I was wrong. She gets it so right I found myself shaken. Brown's words express my own experiences so clearly, so plainly, and her stories are leavened oh-so-sparingly with the piquant emotions that arise in the give-and-take of working with disabled, ill, aging, dying people.

Best of all, after reading this book you will know why a person chooses -- or should not choose, in some cases -- to enter this field.

If at all possible, find the audiobook copy, read by Ms. Brown herself. Her voice, as sparing as her prose, sings with the subtlest vibration.

Understatement is the gift of her voice.

The most honest, beautiful, and loving look at death and dying written in decades. Brown's lyric simplicity, and unasuming voice, draw us into lives and relationships with an urgency and depth that is chilling and soul-deep. This novel should be required reading; it uncovers the truth of giving.

I picked this book up in the store and read the whole thing right there (and then forgot the title and author! I'm glad to have rediscovered this information). The book doesn't quite feel like fiction-- with its attentiveness to detail and its impressive ability to convey the complexities of both author's and patients' situations, all the characters feel so real. What was the Kirkus Reviewer yawning over?

This is one of the best books I have ever read. That Kirkus review is wildly off-base. The Gifts of the Body broke my heart.

I don't think this book is the best thing since peanut butter, but considering most of the schmaltz out there about AIDS, this is a fairly realistic and unsentimental novel (it reads like non-fiction, and in some ways it is) about taking care of people who are ill. One could make the argument that her tone can be condescending at times--home-health care aides aren't always entirely honest--but it didn't take away from my enjoyment. In fact, I read it in one day.

This book reflects on a very specific and dark time and illustrates that time perfectly. Definitely not an easy read but certainly a powerful one.