Customer Reviews

The Wet Engine: Exploring Mad Wild Miracle of Heart

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This extraordinary little book filled with wonder and gratitude defies categorization. Poetry and narrative blend to give us an intimate view of a parent's pain, hope and despair because of his infant son's desperate need for surgery to repair a defective heart. Doyle's minutely detailed description of the workings of our "humming, hammering, holy heart" is joined with an appreciative biography of the pediatric heart surgeon, Dr. Dave McIrvin. In his elegant language the author asks what we might be if we would "act as if our words really matter, if our words become muscled mercy," and he invites us to ponder "what human beings might be if we ever actually rise to our own sweet wild possibilities." Sr. Lenora Black, OSB

You've heard the expression, "Don't judge a book by it's cover?" In this case, don't judge this book by it's title. Get into the pages of this book -- get into the 'heart' of this book -- and you'll be intrigued. Doyle, an award-winning essayist - and well he should be-- is a talented writer breaking all the rules about composition -- and I LOVE IT - he can write the longest run on sentences with incredible interest - reading them is sorta' like being in am Olympic bobsled run. His pages leave you energized, fasinated and breathless. He's a genius at weaving scientific fact, historical information, emotions and spiritual musings on a single subject. Probably one of the few people that could make this hodegpode work. Even if you have no medical or personal interest in heart problems, read this book -- and give it as a gift to a nurse, doctor or someone recovering from heart surgery

This is definitely a beautiful tribute to his son AND his surgeons!
To those who may feel as though the author has resorted to "simple hero-worship", I must tell you that you will NEVER fully understand the author's position. He does, in fact, worship those surgeons. He puts them on a pedestal and will never be able to thank them enough.
I know this because those same surgeons, (Dr. McIrvin, Dr. Iguidbashian, Dr. Hagup) also performed surgery on my son who was born with the same heart defect of Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. They are the epitome of pure genius.
I bought this book in part because it IS a tribute to those men. How would you feel about someone who gave your precious child the gift of life and hope?
Thank you, Mr. Doyle, for this moving story of hope, strength, inspiration, and admiration.

No one writes quite like Brian Doyle. He is lyrical, literate, unpredictable, unafraid, kind, and damned funny. In this book, he is also incredibly moving, as he writes about his son's wounded heart and the doctors who save him. As he explores all the emotions and science leading outward into the world from his family's journey, we share in his curiosity and his reverence and his joy. A fine book.

This little book shows how important and precious each life is. It reminded me that every day is a gift, and the way we live can be a gift to all those with whom we interact. This book is huge even in its brevity.

I saw this book listed on your suggested items several months ago. I had purchased several of Brian's previous books and always found them uplifting and thought provoking. It was only a few days after I purchased this book, The Wet Engine that my wife had a heart attack so it brought home to me the frail qualities of our most important engine. Doyle writes with a very sensitive but yet funny style that kept me turning the pages even though I needed sleep. As his books go, I would recommend this one as a leap forward in his style and insight.
My highschool writing teacher told me that you need to write about something you know or are close to. Evidently Doyle understands this as all his writing is deeply personal and close to home.

Unless a book exclusively dedicated to the heart is written for students of cardiology, it can easily become things no book should ever be: maudlin, saccharine, cliche, banal or about Ann and Nancy Wilson's band. Though Brian Doyle's "The Wet Engine" was written with the non-cardiologist in mind, it was none of these things.

But Doyle's book deserves much higher praise than my observation of what it is not. It thumped about with unexpected twists and turns, packing humor, elation, deep pathos, insightful spiritual meditations, pop trivia, history, and fascinating medical details into a remarkably "lean book," as he calls it. Between poignant reflections on his son Liam's congenital heart malformation--Liam was born with three chambers in his heart rather than four--you'll find stories about incredible people; people like Dave, who trots the globe to saving children's hearts, including Liam's, by the hundreds; people like Hope, who grew up in a Japanese-American internment camp but whose heart refuses to be bitter; and people like Hagop, a big-hearted genius who has "single-handedly dragged [Armenia] toward modern medicine" by working three months in the U.S. each year to finance the hospital he started and works at in Armenia the other nine months, using pencils and flashlights in makeshift operation rooms to save lives when necessary.

These stories, which deserve the slanted elegance of Brian Doyle's conversational prose, are good medicine. They gave me a good laugh, tugged at tears, and inspired sincerity in prayer. Only a book that isn't what it shouldn't be can do what "The Wet Engine" does.

I also highly recommend "Leaping: Revelations & Epiphanies" and anything else Doyle has written.

The Wet Engine is a book with heart about the heart. This book is not only homage to his son's surgeons, it is a wild and ponderous exploration of that which is miraculous in creation and in our very souls. Yes, we hear about the particulars of his terrifying and then triumphant experiences surrounding his son's heart condition, but we also have the heart exposed to us in all of its metaphorical, allegorical, and literal glory. Like Annie Dillard at Tinker Creek, Brian Doyle muses poetically about an amazing array of facts and figures about our hearts. And, like Brian Doyle, he plumbs those facts and figures and evokes awe and laughter and tears and he gives little nods and gestures to suggest that some amazing creator-genius may be lurking in those details. Are they the finger prints of God? Thank you Mr. Doyle. A great read.

Laughter and tears and torment and sighs and fear and relief sum it up. From a parent who
experienced agony of son having surgery at a age of eight.

This book could have been so good. There are moments where it becomes richly profound and genuinely moving - such as when Doyle considers the place of his son in his life, heart troubles and all - but then he slips back into what felt like simple hero-worship of the (admitedly talented) surgeon who saved his son's life.

I really wanted to love this book, but when I finished I felt more disappointed than truly moved.