| 9781250085139 |
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Summary
Summary
Dr. Steven Hatch first came to Liberia in November 2013, to work at a hospital in Monrovia. Six months later, several of the physicians Dr. Hatch had mentored and served with were dead or barely clinging to life, and Ebola had become a world health emergency. Hundreds of victims perished each week; whole families were destroyed in a matter of days; so many died so quickly that the culturally taboo practice of cremation had to be instituted to dispose of the bodies. With little help from the international community and a population ravaged by disease and fear, the war-torn African nation was simply unprepared to deal with the catastrophe. A physician's memoir about the ravages of a terrible disease and the small hospital that fought to contain it, Inferno is also an explanation of the science and biology of Ebola: how it is transmitted and spreads with such ferocity. And as Dr. Hatch notes, while Ebola is temporarily under control, it will inevitably re-emerge--as will other plagues, notably the Zika virus, which the World Health Organization has declared a public health emergency. Inferno is a glimpse into the white-hot center of a crisis that will come again.
Author Notes
Dr. Steven Hatch is an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, specializing in infectious disease and immunology. In 2013-2014, Dr. Hatch lived and worked in Liberia as one of the few Western doctors fighting the Ebola epidemic. His work in Liberia was featured in The New York Times, CBS News, CNN with Anderson Cooper, and elsewhere. The author of Snowball in a Blizzard: A Physician's Notes on Uncertainty in Medicine, Dr. Hatch lives and works in Massachusetts.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Hatch, a physician and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, rivetingly recounts his work in an Ebola treatment unit in Liberia at the height of the deadly West African outbreak in 2014-2015. He breathtakingly narrates his "battle of a lifetime" while retaining a steely-eyed focus on the human tragedy. From the first death Hatch witnesses to the first survival of a patient under his care, he chronicles what it meant to go from "watching the world's leading story to being the world's leading story." Professionally, he appreciates the critical role of nurses and the importance of touch, faces his own failures, and evaluates the good and bad of media coverage. On a personal level, Hatch gives stunning witness to the devastating loss caused by Ebola, including that of a father who survived the virus who then cares for his dying son. "We all knew that the [unit] was a place of hellish misery," yet "despite that knowledge, we were able to keep on with our jobs," Hatch writes. "Our cheer and hope were among our only weapons in the darkness." Hatch's chronicle is a compassionate, clear-eyed, and courageous account of how compassionate medical care proves a formidable force against the ravages of Ebola. Agent: Andy Ross, Andy Ross Agency. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* During the devastating Ebola outbreak in 2013 and 2014, Hatch, a doctor and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts specializing in infectious disease, traveled to Liberia to work in a temporary hospital. His experiences there and upon his return to the U.S. are the framework for this intensely detailed memoir that gives readers not only insight into the path of destruction wrought by the disease but also Liberia's complicated history with America, it's unique relationship with religion, and how it managed to tackle Ebola in the wake of a horrific civil war. That Hatch accomplishes all of this in an outstandingly well-written, page-turning memoir in which he focuses far more on the people he worked with and treated than on his own feelings is nothing short of a literary miracle. Inferno educates, illuminates, and rivets as Hatch rails against the political circumstances that allowed Ebola to flourish and aims his flinty pen at the U.S. media's condescending determination to make a Liberian story more about Western saviors than African victims. This is a masterful work that deserves sharp notice truly, a game changer that should share a shelf with the works of Philip Gourevitch and Adam Hochschild.--Mondor, Colleen Copyright 2016 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Hatch's (medicine, Univ. of Massachusetts) powerful, at times gut-wrenching memoir of his time working in West -Africa to treat Ebola weaves a history of Liberia, public health information, and searing stories of death, hope, and heartbreak. The author narrates a doctor's ethical and professional commitment-how and why he felt so compelled to treat the outbreak. He lucidly and movingly describes his daily work on the Ebola treatment unit, and the costs and rewards of trying to help others regain health in a region with few medical resources, where technologies taken for granted in more developed countries are simply not available. Along with the story it tells of disease, this title also reveals the ways that war, colonialism, and dictatorships have affected health care in Liberia, and in different ways, the state of health in Africa as a whole. Hatch's writing is elegant, and at times deeply moving as he shares the pathos of his patients, the staff of the treatment unit, and his own hopes and frustrations. -VERDICT Readers who are interested in global health, medical education, and biographies in general will be moved by this account for its humanity, honesty, and lucid writing. [See Prepub Alert, 9/19/16.]-Aaron Klink, Duke Univ., Durham, NC © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Introduction: The Abandonment of Unwholesome Thoughts | p. 1 |
| 1 The Vestibule | p. 13 |
| 2 Preparing for the End of the World | p. 27 |
| 3 The Blue World | p. 69 |
| 4 Inferno | p. 95 |
| 5 The Unbearable Cry | p. 133 |
| 6 Behold, a Pale Horse | p. 155 |
| 7 Night | p. 183 |
| 8 Purgatory | p. 205 |
| 9 Mawah | p. 237 |
| Epilogue: Sunset, Sunrise | p. 273 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 283 |
| Bibliography | p. 289 |
| Index | p. 295 |
