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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Paperback)

~ (Author) "If Lia Lee had been born in the highlands of northwest Laos, where her parents and twelve of her brothers and sisters were born, her..." (more)
Key Phrases: family practice center, little neeb, txiv neeb, Nao Kao, United States, Jeanine Hilt (more...)

4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (256 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Lia Lee was born in 1981 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, overmedication, and culture clash: "What the doctors viewed as clinical efficiency the Hmong viewed as frosty arrogance." The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, written with the deepest of human feeling. Sherwin Nuland said of the account, "There are no villains in Fadiman's tale, just as there are no heroes. People are presented as she saw them, in their humility and their frailty--and their nobility." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

YA?A compelling anthropological study. The Hmong people in America are mainly refugee families who supported the CIA militaristic efforts in Laos. They are a clannish group with a firmly established culture that combines issues of health care with a deep spirituality that may be deemed primitive by Western standards. In Merced, CA, which has a large Hmong community, Lia Lee was born, the 13th child in a family coping with their plunge into a modern and mechanized way of life. The child suffered an initial seizure at the age of three months. Her family attributed it to the slamming of the front door by an older sister. They felt the fright had caused the baby's soul to flee her body and become lost to a malignant spirit. The report of the family's attempts to cure Lia through shamanistic intervention and the home sacrifices of pigs and chickens is balanced by the intervention of the medical community that insisted upon the removal of the child from deeply loving parents with disastrous results. This compassionate and understanding account fairly represents the positions of all the parties involved. The suspense of the child's precarious health, the understanding characterization of the parents and doctors, and especially the insights into Hmong culture make this a very worthwhile read.?Frances Reiher, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1 edition (September 28, 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0374525641
ISBN-13: 978-0374525644
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (256 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,509 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

#1 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Asian
#1 in	Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Special Groups > Minority Studies
#4 in	Books > Science > Medicine > Physician & Patient

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
If Lia Lee had been born in the highlands of northwest Laos, where her parents and twelve of her brothers and sisters were born, her mother would have squatted on the floor of the house that her father had built from ax-hewn planks thatched with bamboo and grass. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
family practice center, little neeb, txiv neeb, qaug dab peg, paj ntaub, rumor originated, lead therapy

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Nao Kao, United States, Jeanine Hilt, Ban Vinai, May Ying, Shee Yee, Vang Pao, Pathet Lao, Dan Murphy, Bill Selvidge, Long Tieng, Lia Lee, Jonas Vangay, Peggy Philp, Valley Children's Hospital, Dang Moua, Neil Ernst, Fish Soup, Child Protective Services, Central Valley, Dave Schneider, Sue Xiong, The Melting Pot, Royal Lao, Some Hmong

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 56 books:

Dab Neeg Hmoob by Charles Johnson on 15 pages
Hmong Folklife by Donald A. Willcox on 7 pages
The Merck Manual 18th Edition by Mark H. Beers on 5 pages
The Other Side of the Asian American Success Story (Jossey Bass Education Series) by Wendy Walker-Moffat on 4 pages
Ban Vinai: The Refugee Camp by Lynellyn D. Long on 4 pages

See all 56 books this book cites

100 books cite this book:

Hmong American Concepts of Health (Asian Americans Reconceptualizing Culture, History, Politics) by Dia Cha on 33 pages
Social Work Practice With a Difference: A Literary Approach by Alice Lieberman on 6 pages
A Year of Reading by Elisabeth Ellington on 5 pages
Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context by Daniel A. Bell on page 78, page 154, and Back Matter
Buddha Is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America (Public Anthropology, 5) by Aihwa Ong on page 287, page 297, and page 303

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Books on Related Topics (learn more)

Sociology by Dr. David M. Newman

Discusses:

Social Work Practice With a Difference by Alice Lieberman

Discusses:

Culture in Clinical Care by Bette Bonder PhD OTR/L FAOTA

Discusses:

Hmong Dictionary by Jay Xiong

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cross cultural insights(34)

nonfiction(25)

hmong(24)

medicine(20)

global and cultural issues(18)

anne fadiman(13)

culture(11)

immigration(11)

anthropology(10)

public health(8)

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Customer Reviews

256 Reviews

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4 star:		(58)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(6)
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Average Customer Review

4.5 out of 5 stars (256 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

234 of 254 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AS A HMONG AMERICAN, April 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures (Hardcover)

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall is a novel based on the clash of two cultures---the Hmong culture and the American culture. A little Hmong girl is diagnosed with epilepsy which her parents believe is caused by spirits. Because of this belief, they try to cure her illness not with western medication but their own Hmong ways. There is a huge misunderstanding between the parents and the doctors that Anne Fadiman explores. Anne Fadiman provides readers with a vivid, detailed history of the Hmong in Laos to their involvement in the Vietnam War to their struggles in America that explains this clash. On the other hand, she also explains why Americans see and felt the way they did about the Hmong culture particularly the doctors. One shortcoming is that the author implies that Hmong Americans and their experiences are completely homogenous, but the beauty of this book is that she is able to view both sides without judgment. As a Hmong American, it's hard to imagine an American who can achieve this, but the author achieves this so beautifully. It's hard to look at something from a totally different perspective especially because westerners are very rigid about their beliefs and have a sense of superiority in regards to other cultures thus I was shocked that Fadiman was able to communicate and understand the Hmong in such a way. She did a great job of digging beyond the surface and really understanding the Hmong people, their beliefs, and where they are coming from. As a Hmong American, I think she did a great job! She talked of things that I couldn't imagine an American even knowing about until I read this book. It's great to know that an American can look at the Hmong culture without judgment and even come to admire it and see some good in it even though it's very different from her own beliefs. I recommend this book to anyone especially those that are interested in learning more about the Hmong.

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54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is an exceptional piece of work!!, November 4, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures (Hardcover)

I don't think I should be writing in here since I am a part of the book. This book was amazing! It took me two days to read it and of course I shed a few tears on the way. My sister, Lia Lee, is doing well although she will never be able to see the bright sunlight or the incredible stars that we see everyday and everynite. She is an incredible child with so much love and affection from her family and the many friends she have encountered during her hardships. I was only 7 when all this happened, but I do recall everything from the door slamming incident to the day the doctors told my family that it was okay for her to come but she will not live pass 7 days. I will never forget that week or those many years of pain my family or the doctors had to go through. This book has given me a better view of what can really happen when two different cultures have their own ways of interpreting medicine or life in general. We must understand that different cultures have different ways of curing a person and doctors have their policy they must follow. To avoid another incident like this, we must work together as a whole and not blame each other for not cooperating with one another. Lets hope this book tells us what can happen in the future if we don't work with this now. Anne did a great job on this book! My family couldn't have ask for more. She has become a great friend of my family and we are greatful for it. Anne-thank you !

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52 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A divine liqueur distilled from a murky cultural clash, April 6, 1998

By	Daniel Murphy "Dan Murphy" (Redmond, OR USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures (Hardcover)

I was one of the physicians involved in the care of Lia Lee. I'm referred to in the book as the physician that first diagnosed Lia's spells as seizures. Neil Ernst and Peggy Philp, the principal pediatricians in the book, were and are good friends of mine. Having experienced Lia Lee's saga personally, and then having read the book, I can only refer to Anne Fadiman's talent as astounding. Anne walks an incredibly fine, and very well documented, line as she describes what happens when American medical technology meets up with a deep and ancient Eastern culture. My team (Western medicine) failed Lia. Never have I felt so fairly treated in defeat, and never have I felt so much respect for an author's skillful distillation of a tragically murky confrontation of cultures.

ADDENDUM (8/8/09) I wrote the above review almost a decade ago. The experiences that I had during the events described in this book have continued to guide the way that I practice medicine. The Spirit Catches You has become a true classic in the medical and anthropological fields, being read in college, medical school, and nursing classes throughout the United States every year. This speaks to the enduring quality of the work that Anne Fadiman did in a book that remains unique in the skill with which it was written. The story it contains remains fresh and astoundingly relevant to the practice of medicine in particular, and cross-cultural relationships in general.

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5.0 out of 5 stars A read for all ages
One of my favorite books of all time. My Cultural Anthropology teacher had us read this book and I don't regret one minute of it. It's a very touching and compelling book. Read more

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I picked up this book, and within a few minutes i was hooked, it is utterly intregging. Its really easy to understand, and i like how it gives explanations of the medical... Read more

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Published 1 month ago by Lisa M. Imbriaco

4.0 out of 5 stars Poignant and Enlightening
The subtitle is "A Hmong child, her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures". This subtitle is only part of the story which also includes the tragedy of war, the... Read more

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3.0 out of 5 stars Decent book....just decent.
This book was very interesting in the beginning. It talks about Hmong history and the differences between American and Hmong traditions/culture. Read more

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