The Night-Side: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome & The Illness Experience [Paperback]

Floyd Skloot (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Anyone who writes about illness must quote Illness as Metaphor, and Skloot (Summer Blue) uses Susan Sontag's book for both the title and the epigraph: "Illness is the night-side of life," says Sontag. "Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick." Before he got Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) in 1988, Skloot was, as he often reiterates, firmly a citizen of the former: a runner "with a corkboard of ribbons" and without "an ounce of fat," he became habitually weak, forgetful, flu-ish. He quit his job as a "Senior Public Policy Analyst for a diversified energy corporation" but continued to work on his writing, turning out these essays, many of which have appeared in magazines such as The Antioch Review, Threepenny Review and even JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. One, which appeared in The Best American Essays of 1993, is an affecting description of life with a brain that is no longer agile. Two other early pieces are also worthwhile: his musings on being a research subject ("Here I am with an illness that too many people already suspect as being psychosomatic; what happens if I get better during the clinical trial and it turns out I've been getting the placebo?") and on his memories of his mother's carefully packaged apartment, in which everything was embalmed in Saran Wrap. The pieces that work best approach the illness indirectly. Without a larger philosophy or dry humor (his sections on alternative medicine compare badly with Spalding Gray's), Skloot's writing on his illness, especially one received with so little sympathy by the general public, seems self-indulgent.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Devastated by chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), award-winning poet, essayist, and novelist Skloot (Summer Blue, LJ 11/15/94) learned how serious illness can strike overnight and quickly rearrange every aspect of life. Over the next seven years, he went to astonishing lengths to find a cure for his incurable disease, undergoing some bizarre remedies: a double-blind experimental drug (ampligen) study, a visit to an Indian avatar in Germany, and Ayurvedic therapy in Vancouver. Skloot looks at his illness straight-on to explore Susan Sontag's "wild conundrum...about the healthiest way of being ill" (Illness as Metaphor, LJ 6/1/78). In the 12 essays reprinted here, which work well as a whole, he includes humor, baseball, poetry, music, and insights from Norman Cousins, Oliver Sacks, and others. An intelligent lay reader's guide, this is interesting but not essential reading. For comprehensive health collections.?James Swanton, Harlem Hosp. Lib., New York
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Story Line Press (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885266316
• ISBN-13: 978-1885266316
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,283,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Floyd Skloot is a creative nonfiction writer, poet, and fiction writer whose work has received three Pushcart Prizes, a Pen USA Literary Award, two Pacific NW Book Awards, an Independent Publishers Book Award, and two Oregon Book Awards. His writing has appeared in such distinguished magazines as The New York Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Poetry, American Scholar, Georgia Review, Sewanee Review, Southern Review, Hudson Review, Gettysburg Review, Boulevard, Virginia Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, and Creative Nonfiction. His seventeen books include the memoirs In the Shadow of Memory (University of Nebraska Press, 2003), A World of Light (University of Nebraska Press, 2005), and The Wink of the Zenith: The Shaping of a Writer's Life (University of Nebraska Press, 2008); the poetry collections Approximately Paradise (Tupelo Press, 2005), The End of Dreams (Louisiana State University Press, 2006), Selected Poems: 1970-2005 (Tupelo Press, 2008), and The Snow's Music (Louisiana State University Press, 2008); and the novels Summer Blue (Story Line Press, 1994) and Patient 002 (Rager Media, 2007).

His newest books include his first collection of short stories, Cream of Kohlrabi (Tupelo Press, 2011), and a forthcoming collection of poems, Close Reading (Tupelo Press, 2013).

He co-edited The Best American Science Writing 2011 (HarperCollins/Ecco Press) with his daughter, Rebecca Skloot.

He contributes book reviews to the New York Times Book Review, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, Harvard Review, Sewanee Review, Notre Dame Review and other publications, and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

Floyd has taught at the Mid-Atlantic Creative Nonfiction Summer Writers Conference at Goucher College, the Paris Writers Workshop, and elsewhere.

He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, Beverly Hallberg, a weaver and landscape painter, whose light-filled works cross between impressionistic and abstracted styles. Her paintings grace the covers of Floyd's books, Approximately Paradise, The End of Dreams, Selected Poems: 1970-2005, and The Snow's Music. See her work at www.beverlyhallberg.com.

Floyd's daughter, Rebecca Skloot, is the bestselling author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown Books, 2010), winner of the Heartland Prize and Wellcome Trust Book Prize, and named Best Book of 2010 by Amazon.com. Visit her website at www.rebeccaskloot.com.

Skloot is represented by Andrew Blauner at Blauner Books Literary Agency. Contact him at: [e-mail].

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Uplifting Insights, April 11, 2001

By 

C. Gombar "christinagombar" (Saunderstown, RI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Night-Side: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome & The Illness Experience (Paperback)

As of this date there are close to 150 titles listed on amazon relating to Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome. Only a very small number of these deal with the full personal experience of living with the illness. Unlike the other few memoir type writings I've read, Skloot's is not a "how I beat the illness" story, because he hasn't beat it, he's simply drastically altered his life by necessity.

For someone like me, whose same illness was denied by everyone around me for years, to the point where I internalized their beliefs and tried to live as if I weren't ill until I, too, became majorly debilitated, Skloot's perspective is a welcome relief. He had a sudden onset, which changed his life dramatically within a matter of weeks. It's encouraging to read the musings of someone who has his head straight on about this illness. He doesn't whine, or moan and groan. He is so completely sure of his ground, that there's no room for defensiveness in his tone. It's uplifting to read about someone who, like myself, was open to every alternative treatment or scientific explanation, though the miracle cure that would relieve his symptoms hasn't come along yet. It's also reassuring to know that there's someone out there who had the combination of luck and smarts not to be completely downtrodden by this disease. As a fellow sufferer, his lack of anger, his philosophical approach, his open mindedness are qualities I'd like to emulate.

If you are a sufferer, or know anyone who is, or has a CFIDS sufferer in their life, this is a good book to start the healing process. The last thing anyone who's sick needs to be told is that all their problems will go away if they just give up wheat or mushrooms. Right now, CFIDS is a mystery, and coping strategies that go beyond the facile recommendations of most self-help for CFIDS books out there, like "don't get upset if you miss a deadline at work" -- are rare. If you become ill to the extent that Skloot is, you need the spiritual and philosophical nutrition of excellent literature. I only wish there were more such fine personal accounts written on this devastating illness.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful without apology, March 16, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Night-Side: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome & The Illness Experience (Paperback)

Being a CFS sufferer, I myself had become very tired of the autobiographical books which bemoaned how hard the illness is. Mr Skloot never minimizes the illness or his discomfort yet shows how the introspection forced upon oneby long term illness as well as the search for relief can offer insight, humor and relevation. I don't know of any disabled person, caregiver or human being who couldn't experience some moments of connection and understanding in Mr. Skloot's book. His style is refreshing and honest. A truly fresh look at the human condition and it's ups & downs. A must read!

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars engagingly personal and wide in scope, April 3, 2000

By 

Suzanne Artley (Florence, MT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Night-Side: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome & The Illness Experience (Paperback)

I am wary of books by men-who-have-been-athletes, because I find my experience of similar life events often to be different, to the point of having nothing in common. Floyd Skloot has written a book that is at once both very personal and wide-ranging. Speaking of the stunning changes that come with a life altering illness, he proceeds to delve into areas as diverse as baseball (player become spectator), alternative healing techniques (he's tried a bunch), spirituality, and the changed perception of time that comes with chronic disease.

Having moved, like Floyd, from the fast lane to the slow lane, to the exit ramp and off, I find his perspective to be honest, profound, and free of a sense of victimization. I highly recommend the book to women and men with CFS and other chronic maladies. Far from being the last word, it opens up the discussion of a lifestyle and worldview that is almost taboo in faster-is-better American culture.