Lost in America - by Sherwin B Nuland (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A writer renowned for his insight into the mysteries of the body now gives us a lambent and profoundly moving book about the mysteries of family. At its center lies Sherwin Nuland's Rembrandtesque portrait of his father, Meyer Nudelman, a Jewish garment worker who came to America in the early years of the last century but remained an eternal outsider. Awkward in speech and movement, broken by the premature deaths of a wife and child, Meyer ruled his youngest son with a regime of rage, dependency, and helpless love that outlasted his death.

In evoking their relationship, Nuland also summons up the warmth and claustrophobia of a vanished immigrant New York, a world that impelled its children toward success yet made them feel like traitors for leaving it behind. Full of feeling and unwavering observation, Lost in America deserves a place alongside such classics as Patrimony and Call It Sleep.

Review Quotes

"Riveting. . . . A classic second-generation immigrant memoir. . . . A great book, full of feelings and memories that ring true." --The New York Times Book Review

"A tale with universal resonance. . . unsparing, deeply felt and searching." --Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Intensely attuned to small gestures of suffering and consolation, Nuland studies his family . . .with pained, humane attentiveness. A supremely gentle book." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Remarkable. . . . A tragic portrait that is both terrible and beautiful in its clarity." --Seattle Times

About the Author

Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D., is the author of How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter. He is clinical professor of surgery at Yale, where he also teaches bioethics and medical history. In addition to his numerous articles for medical publications, he has written for The New Yorker, The New Republic, the New York Times, Time, and the New York Review of Books. He writes a regular column for The American Scholar entitled "The Uncertain Art." Dr. Nuland and his family live in Connecticut.