From Publishers Weekly
As McManus (author of the bestselling
Positively Fifth Street) admits, he's been spending too much time on his duff, playing poker and eating third helpings of his wife's cooking. He also likes his liquor and his postprandial cigarette—all bad things given his family history of early heart attacks and death. In this disjointed, sometimes uproarious, sometimes powerful book, Mcmanus describes his experience of the über-physical—the executive physical at the Mayo Clinic. McManus does amazing high-energy riffs on themes like our belief in our own immortality, and assesses the manner and personalities of his doctors as keenly as they examine him. One wonders whether he needed an $8,000 physical to learn he should exercise more, eat and drink less and cut out the smoking, but the tour of the remarkable Mayo Clinic and the best physical money can buy is well worthwhile. Equally strong is a recounting of his older daughter Bridget's struggle with juvenile diabetes, which leads to forceful but repetitious rants against President Bush for virtually banning embryonic stem cell research (which could lead to a cure for diabetes). Odd detours into other areas of McManus's physical life, like his reluctance to have a vasectomy, are less gratifying, and the book doesn't really add up to a look at health care in America today.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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*Starred Review* When
New York Times poker columnist McManus (
Positively Fifth Street, 2003) visited the Mayo Clinic for an extensive--and invasive--physical, he came face-to-face with the newest realization of millions of baby boomers: mortality. Furthermore, to live to the fullest extent his remaining years in this mortal coil, he would have to clean up his act. Easier said than done for the fiftysomething lover of rich foods, hard liquor, and the occasional postprandial cigarette. Undergoing Mayo's three-day, head-to-toe, inside-and-out, executive physical induces self-deprecating reflection on the consequences of a lifetime of indulgences. While he wants to be around when his two youngest daughters graduate from college, he knows the road ahead will be tough. With his unusual lifestyle (long nights of poker), love for baked ziti, and a family history of heart disease, he's being asked to make some serious sacrifices. Will he succeed? Tune in next book. In the meantime, McManus uses the lighthearted account of his physical to launch serious-as-a-heart-attack discussion of the current state of health care in the U.S., zeroing in on stem-cell research (he has a 30-year-old daughter with juvenile diabetes) and blasting government policies that impair progress by limiting research possibilities.
Donna ChavezCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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