SHIRLEE BLOOM

Jay Neugeboren's Transforming

Madness: New Lives for People
Living with Mental Illness (William
Morrow; $25) provides an overview
of mental health care in America.
In his 1997 book, Imagining Robert,
the award-winning Neugeboren wrote
of his brother Robert's severe, chronic
and incapacitating mental illness. In
his latest book, the Jewish author
relates visits to facilities and conversa-
tions both with mental health profes-
sionals and those who have made it
back to a more normal life from severe
illness. His efforts were undertaken
while searchina for a more humane
life and home b for his brother.
Neugeboren sheds new light on the
vast improvement in care, treatment,
medications, rehabilitation and thera-
pies that make it possible for people
with serious psychiatric disorders to
live active, productive lives without
having to be either fully cured or
symptom-free.
Transforming Madness is filled with
dramatic stories that offer practical
bases for genuine hope and the many
ways in which people who have suf-
fered the long-term ravages of psy-
chiatric disorders can lead full and
viable lives.

"Humor helps us keep our balance
when life throws us a curveball," says
author Allen Klein in The Courage to

Laugh: Humor, Hope, and Healing
in the Face of Death and Dying
(Penguin Putnam; $14.95).
Illustrating the natural importance
of laughter, Klein shows readers how
to face the end of life and the grieving
process with dignity and compassion.
Through his own experience and his
14-year career lecturing on this topic,
he fills the book with insight, heart-
warming stories and anecdotes from
patients, doctors, nurses, children and
comedians.
Their inspirational and humorous
stories, combined with the author's
sympathetic voice, provide a valuable
tool for anyone facing the loss of a
loved one.
Allen Klein's expertise in the death
and dying field comes from his experi-
ence as director of the Life/Death
Transitions Institute in San Francisco,
and as a licensed home health aide and
hospice volunteer.

FICTION

The Case of Dr. Sachs (Seven Stories
Press; $27.95), a powerful novel that
sold 600,000 copies in Europe, won
the Prix du Lyre Inter and was made

HAS ALL YOUR LAST MINUTE
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into an award-winning film that will
be released next year, was written by
Martin Winckler, a doctor who for
many years practiced in the provinces
of France. Newly translated from the
French by Linda Asher, the novel
reveals its author's experience in a
forceful interweaving of medicine and
humanity.
The Case of Dr. Sachs is a novel of a
doctor's life that recalls Checkov's
Ward Number Six. The character of
Dr. Sachs comes through the eyes and
impressions of his many patients, col-
leagues and friends. The events are
often deceivingly inconsequential; the
composite effect is devastating. We
come to see the doctor's empathy for
his fellow man as both his motivating
force and his own untreatable condi-
tion.
Winckler was born in Algeria in
1955. His family moved to Israel and
then, in 1962, to France. He
obtained his M.D. in 1977, and
opened his own office as a general
practitioner in 1983. He also worked
part time at a women's health center
performing abortions. In addition to
a previous novel, he has published
many essays on social and medical
issues. In 1994, he stopped practicing
medicine altogether and began writ-
ing full time.

"If I could drop dead right now,
Sam Goldwyn once said, "I'd be the
happiest man alive." Such is the
predicament faced by Martin
Dorfman in John Blumenthal's new
comic novel, What's Wrong With
Dorfman? (Farmer Street Press;
$11.95).
In the midst of navigating his latest
film script through Hollywood
Development Hell, the book's 40-
year-old protagonist suddenly devel-
ops a mysterious disease with bizarre
symptoms. After a battery of tests, his
doctors are stumped, so Dorfman
takes his diagnosis and a hoped-for
cure into his own hands and embarks
on an odyssey to the fringes of alter-
native medicine.
More than the plight of one man,
What's Wrong With Dorfman pokes
fun at the angst of modern society,
and asks the question, "Aren't we all a
little nuts?"
Blumenthal, a former contributing
editor at Playboy magazine, has
penned humorous essays for numer-
ous magazines, five previous books
and the screenplays for two feature
films, Short Time and the 1 999 come-
dy Blue Steak. LI

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