Customer Reviews

Well Enough Alone

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just finished reading this book, and I can honestly say it was written with such wit and insight that it made the whole subject of personal and historical hypochondriasis entertaining. (How's that for an opener?) It is almost impossible to believe that someone with such insight into a subject could actually suffer from the symptoms she imagines. As a nurse, I empathized on every page. As a reader, I felt guilty being so gleefully entertained by her experiences. It is hard to find a book that truly is humorous without seeming contrived, and this is one of those rare books. Traiger has the gift of keeping a narrative going - on a fairly limited subject- and never lets the subject gets stale. In fact, the book may be too short because you miss her when the book is over.

I had the time of my life reading this book. It's fascinating and informative -- who knew that hypochondria used to be chic? -- but also hilarious. I laughed helplessly more times than I can count. David Sedaris better watch his back!

Her other book, Devil in the Details, was one of my favorite all time books. I really enjoyed Well Enough Alone and quickly sailed through the book in just two nights. I laughed out loud frequently and look forward to sharing it with 1 or 2 friends who might see themselves in the book!!! While it won't go into the list of one of my all time favorites, if you enjoy a silly and sarcastic, yet beautifully honest look at human nature -I would definitely recommend Well Enough Alone. I love Jennifer's writing and look forward to all of her future books.

Funny,dry,sharp without being in any way sad. I laughed the hypochondria out of my body. I don't know why another review suggested that it was negative for Jennifer to "use an excuse" to talk about herself, isn't that what autobiographical material is all about? I would read anything this author wrote about herself. She's funnier than most authors and is an excellent writer as well. Prepare to laugh and laugh again, this book is worth the read!

I had so much fun reading Jennifer Traig's memoir, I was sorry when it ended. Jennifer has such an exquisite, dry wit you'll find yourself laughing out loud at all of her imagined health crises, perhaps recognizing a bit of yourself in each one. (And I thought I was the only one thinking about Lupus while my classmates were resting their heads during nap time!) Let's hope that when Jennifer does actually go, it's of old age.

Wendy Aron, author of Hide & Seek: How I Laughed at Depression, Conquered My Fears and Found Happiness

Jennifer Traig was pretty sure she had cancer. Also, lupus, tuberculosis and kidney failure. And herpes, rickets and Lyme disease. Plus, she might have had a heart attack somewhere along the way. As a hypochondriac, Traig is constantly convincing herself that she has been stricken with all kinds of illnesses; the symptoms are real, but the results are always negative. Or, almost always. She does have obsessive compulsive disorder and irritable bowel syndrome. She suffered from an actual eating disorder and, she will tell you, has frizzy hair.

While hypochondriacs exist only as the butt of bad jokes for most of us, Traig's latest memoir, WELL ENOUGH ALONE, explores the disorder in a personal and compelling way. Traig is often the butt of her own jokes, but this book makes it clear that hypochondria is no laughing matter.

Traig explains that hypochondria doesn't generally manifest until adulthood, yet she had signs of it as a child. In second grade she was worried about brain aneurysms, not to mention contaminated school lunches and injury from risky playground equipment. Her family seemed to be full of hypochondriacs, some of them genuinely sick, and her parents' medical professions also gave her fuel for the fire. She soon figured out that doctors worked hard and fussed over the sick, who got to rest and be pampered. Being sick, she reasoned, was the better deal. As she got older, the worry turned into real hypochondria, and she often found herself in the doctor's office with lists of pains and symptoms, rashes and spots.

Her teenage years were consumed with OCD and her eating disorder, and this seemed to keep the hypochondria at bay. But it resurfaced in college, and she began to self-medicate. She also started working in medical offices that, instead of worsening her hypochondria, actually soothed it; she found that having some control in a medical environment, even if it was just organizing patient files, helped her feel more in control over her symptoms. Still, her college years (and they are many, as she earned a PhD in literature) were ones of poor nutrition, alcohol and non-prescribed prescription drugs as well as angst at literary theories like deconstructionism. None of this sounds quite funny, but truly, Traig has a way of making it so.

Because the market has been flooded with horrible childhood memoirs, Traig's is refreshing. She doesn't lay blame (except with her genetic pool), and her tone is good-natured and self-mocking. She is a charming narrator, and her supporting cast --- her raucous and kind family and strung-out friends --- are interesting as well. From her unorthodox teaching methods as a grad student to her love of 1970s drug company marketing practices, Traig expands her story beyond her body yet is able to tie it all in to make a cohesive whole. She explains hypochondria clearly but without dull medical technical details, and is sensitive enough to make sure that the readers are laughing with her and not at hypochondriacs in general.

The book also includes some oddly hypnotic and beautifully graphic Victorian portraits of patients with conditions like Lupus Erythematosus, Molluscum Fibrosum and Rhinoscleroma. The appendix is full of gems such as "handy phrases for the hypochondriac traveler as translated somewhat unreliably on my computer," "diseases that would make nice names if they meant something else" and "hypochondria haiku."

WELL ENOUGH ALONE is funny and surprisingly sweet. A bit unfocused at times, it is a good book overall and gets better as it goes along.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

Jennifer Traig's Well Enough Alone is a memoir centered around the author's health, a history of the real and perceived sicknesses and syndromes and symptoms that have shaped her life. Traig writes about a childhood soaked in free samples of prescription medications foisted on her father, a physician, about her discomfort with her body and its emanations, about her life as a hypochondriacal college and grad student. She discusses the social joys of food poisoning, the heartbreak of eczema. Her chapters mix memoir with medical information and the occasional health-related historical tidbit (e.g., Abraham Lincoln's final bowel movement is on display in a museum in Baltimore; George Washington's teeth were spring-loaded, so that he was compelled to clench his jaw at all times to keep his mouth shut). The result is a narrative that flows so smoothly you barely notice when it changes direction, from puberty to bat mitzvah to the Talmud to donkey urine, autopsies, the Eucharist, and breasts.

A book-length investigation of hypochondria might seem an unlikely vehicle for humor, but Traig's a very funny writer. There's a delightful turn of phrase or two on nearly every page of the book. Most of these I merely appreciated in silence, but a passage in Traig's chapter on the breast reduction surgery she underwent sent me into a sort of hysterical tittering that made the children come running from another room:

"When I heard about the 'pencil test'--an assessment of perkiness in which you place a pencil under your breast and pray the breast is not saggy enough to keep the pencil in place--I was eager to see what, besides pencils, my breasts could actually hold. I went from pencils to playing cards to CDs, stopping only after I successfully held up a VHS tape."

Traig's pendulous, VHS-holding breasts would eventually be much reduced. The size she selected, after some research, was a 36C:

"The end result would be a perky little 36C, a size I'd settled on after spending several weeks staring at women's chests. Friends, relatives, elderly nuns: no one was spared my penetrating gaze. Companions started to avoid going out with me. 'Oh, cut it out, will you?' my best friend pleaded. 'You're embarrassing every woman here. Well, except for the 34B with the graying brush cut, who's mouthing you her phone number.'"

Traig is an honest writer--unless she's exaggerating for effect--insofar as she paints herself as a very unlikable person at times. She is immature and abrasive; she drinks too much (or did) and takes (or took) drugs and doesn't practice good dental hygiene; she was highly irresponsible as a teacher when in graduate school. On the other hand, Traig is self-aware and self-condemning, chastising herself for this behavior, which one rather admires. Whatever the childishness of her first several decades, Traig seems well past it now.

But while I'm not entirely sure I like the author's persona, the quality of her writing is not in question. Well Enough Alone is a fascinating and funny book.

-- Debra Hamel

I really enjoyed Jennifer Traig's previous book and I was looking forward to reading this one. Traig has a knack for taking a "serious" subject and turning it on its ear - all the while feeding us full of useful information on that very same subject.

Well Enough Alone is one such book. The subject matter is somewhat taboo in our society and is never really discussed openly and yet, there are many, many people suffering in silence. Traig talks about it as if it she were talking about a pimple on her face - and does it with a senses of humour that I just adored. Yet, at the same time, the author gives us lots of pertinent information on the subject and more importantly, removes some of the stigma from it.

The one thing I had a bit of a problem with (and why I rated the book 3 instead of 4 stars) is the fact that, at times, I found the storylines jumped around alot - and it took me a few seconds to situate myself - especially if I put the book down and picked it up a day later.

Still, this is a great read on a difficult subject to talk about in "polite company".

The first part was great. It seemed to drag on a little bit towards the middle though, I was a little disappointed overall.

I read Jennifer Traig's first book "Devil in the Details" as I am fascinated with OCD. Her first book about being affected with "scrupulosity" was interesting, and she seemed a tragic and tormented person.

In this book, "Well Enough Alone", she just seems annoying. Her time lines are confusing; was she a grad student and teaching while she lived with the druggie roommates? Was she becoming an observant Jew while partying with her [......] pals? My confusion may stem from having read an earlier autobiographical book by her, and trying to overlay it with this one, and the two do not seem congruent in any way. Maybe this is an alternate history.

The historical info. on hypochondria and diseases is interesting, I would have enjoyed a book just about that. Traig just falls short too often on her attempts at sarcastic humour and I never felt sorry for her at all, just annoyed and impatient for her to grow-the-h*ll-up, get some clues and get a life.