Customer Reviews

A private battle

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Over the past 5 years I have read this book 4 times. Some people might think it depressing but I found it to be strangely uplifting. Focusing on Cornelius Ryan's ultimately fatal battle with prostate cancer, it nonetheless practically shouts triumph over incredibly severe odds. A nerve of steel runs through this book as well as softer moments that every human can relate to. The "main characters" of the book - Connie, Katie, Geoff and Vickie - almost become a part of your own family and, by book's end, you feel you intimately know these people, and are the better for it. The book is also full of perimeter characters - doctors, friends and family - who also come alive and jump out of the pages. The reader begins to know Cornelius Ryan and his co-author wife, Kathryn Morgan Ryan, and they marvel at the resilience of these two who, together, travel a very long and tiring road. I strongly recommend this book to anyone, but especially those experiencing similar situations in life. In my estimation, this book is a literary masterpiece. (As an aside, I always wondered what ever happened to Kathryn "Katie" after Connie's death; great was my sorrow to learn that she passed away in 1993 in her 60s. Geoff and Vickie are now married, with children of their own).

While writing his last book, A Bridge Too Far, Cornelius Ryan was fighting a losing 4-½ year battle with prostate cancer. A Private Battle is a compilation of secret journals, one kept by "Connie" Ryan and the other by his wife Kathryn Morgan Ryan. Kathryn found her husband's record only after his death. We are given the privilege of living the pain and love of these two remarkable people as they experience the finiteness of life cut short and its effects on their entire family. Their rare ability to express their emotions in a concise, yet painfully honest manner makes this a book that should be required reading for all couples preparing for marriage, or just for living life. If you enjoyed 'Tuesday's With Morrie...', you must read this book. This review does not do justice to what I experienced reading this book.

Cornelius Ryan, a WW 2 combat reporter and author of "The Longest Day" and "A Bridge Too Far", died in 1974. "A Private Battle" is the story of Ryan's 4 year effort to survive prostate cancer in the 1970s as assembled from their notes and tapes by Ryan's wife, Kathryn, after his death.

Ryan had the drive and the resources to conduct a substantial battle, but the technology and medical practices of the day failed him. The technology has since improved, notably with the use of PSA as a diagnostic and monitoring tool and with some advanced treatments. Some of the medical practices have not. Many doctors, for example, ridicule patient's interest in PSA (sometimes justifiably). The book is worth reading for the insight it provides about "the old days" when patients had nothing but gross symptoms and pain for early warning and treatment evaluation.

this book is really good and has lots of deph in it, if u want to lears about the d0day invasion readf this book, it reads well and its not too long