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Mountains beyond Mountains

by Tracy Kidder

Mountains beyond Mountains Cover

Staff Pick

Beautifully told, and entirely inspiring, Mountains Beyond Mountains is an exceptional look at the heroic life of Dr. Paul Farmer. Providing health care for hundreds of thousands in a remote, impoverished region of Haiti, Farmer's incomparable dedication brings change not only to the lives he touches directly, but to the efficacy of health care around the globe. Tracy Kidder compellingly proves that one person can make a difference, in this case in Herculean ways. Why read about a pioneering doctor out to change the world? It will change your outlook on humanity and move you to evaluate your place within it.
Recommended by Michal D., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Tracy Kidder is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the author of the bestsellers The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among Schoolchildren, and Home Town. He has been described by the Baltimore Sun as the “master of the non-fiction narrative.” This powerful and inspiring new book shows how one person can make a difference, as Kidder tells the true story of a gifted man who is in love with the world and has set out to do all he can to cure it.

At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life’s calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. This magnificent book shows how radical change can be fostered in situations that seem insurmountable, and it also shows how a meaningful life can be created, as Farmer—brilliant, charismatic, charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston and the mountains of Haiti—blasts through convention to get results.

Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that "the only real nation is humanity" - a philosophy that is embodied in the small public charity he founded, Partners In Health. He enlists the help of the Gates Foundation, George Soros, the U.N.’s World Health Organization, and others in his quest to cure the world. At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope, and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb “Beyond mountains there are mountains”: as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too.

Mountains Beyond Mountains unfolds with the force of a gathering revelation,” says Annie Dillard, and Jonathan Harr says, “[Farmer] wants to change the world. Certainly this luminous and powerful book will change the way you see it.”

Review:

"In this excellent work, Pulitzer Prize-winner Kidder immerses himself in and beautifully explores the rich drama that exists in the life of Dr. Paul Farmer....Throughout, Kidder captures the almost saintly effect Farmer has on those whom he treats." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

Review:

"[A] skilled and graceful exploration of the soul of an astonishing human being." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

Review:

"A fine writer and his extraordinary subject: Tracy Kidder, in giving us Paul Farmer, lifts up an image of hope — and challenge — that the world urgently needs. Simply put, this is an important book." James Carroll, author of Constantine's Sword

Review:

"A profoundly inspiring and important book about one of the truly great men of our time." Ethan Canin, author of Carry Me Across the Water

Review:

"Saints are notoriously difficult people, but who knew one could be so funny, so utterly charming, and finally so deft in accomplishing that most impossible of all job descriptions — changing the world? Tracy Kidder's spellbinding story presents us with an unlikely saint and finally, with inspiration so compelling it makes the usual cynicism about global change seem indulgent foolishness." Patricia Hampl, author of A Romantic Education

Synopsis:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [305]-317).

About the Author

Tracy Kidder has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Award, among other literary prizes. The author of The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among Schoolchildren, Old Friends, and Home Town, Kidder lives in Massachusetts and Maine.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Grady Harp, December 21, 2006 (view all comments by Grady Harp)
'There's a lot that can be said for sacrifice, remorse, even pity. It's what separates us from roaches'

Tracy Kidder's brilliant biography of Dr. Paul Farmer is at once disturbing and exhilarating: disturbing, as it points out all the inequalities in living conditions and health care between the rich and the poor and the staggering statistics about disease and the lack of available medical aid in many parts of the world, and exhilarating to read the selfless commitment of one man to change these situations. Not only is the information in this inordinately readable book fascinating but also the superb writing style of Pulitzer Prize winning author Tracy Kidder is some of the best to be published in recent years.

Kidder concerns his book with one Paul Farmer, a poor lad who grew up nearly homeless (unless one calls living on a riverboat a home) in Alabama, a gifted thinker who climbed out of his beginnings to discover the inequities in the big world, went to medical school at Harvard, and then proceeded to commit his life to changing the pitiful poverty and disease-ridded Haiti, establishing not only viable medical centers but also spreading his warm personality into the hinterlands of that little country making day-long walking housecalls for the poor families who as human beings deserve as fine a quality of medicine as those who live near the wealthy comforts of the major city medical centers.

How Kidder accompanied and observed Farmer as he sought funding and supplies and training not only in Haiti, where the diseases of tuberculosis and AIDS were decimating the population while the world just silently watched, but also extending his beneficence to Peru and to the prisons of Russia, attack tuberculosis and AIDS with the same ardor is the basis of this book. Farmer's accomplishments created the Partners in Health organization that in turn stimulated the World Health Organization to wake up to the disasters that reign in the third world countries, eventually supplying the much needed medicines, cash, buildings and personnel to begin to make a change in the world health care.

Kidder's gift as a writer lies not only in his detailed and well researched biography of a modern saint, but also in his ability to allow us to get to know the very human creature named Paul Farmer. He touches on his personal life, his struggles with his own diseases (he nearly died from hepatitis), and his indomitable spirit in facing a bureaucratic conundrum that prevented the poor of the world from receiving care. It is a touching story, it is a superlative investigation into one man's spirit and selfless commitment, and it is a book that demands our attention on many levels. Tracy Kidder's sharing of Dr. Paul Farmer's life is a poignant reminder that the individual CAN make a difference: it is a matter or devotion to an ideal that can become a reality despite obstructions the world places in the path. Highly Recommended.
Grady Harp


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Product Details

ISBN:
9780375506161
Author:
Kidder, Tracy
Publisher:
Random House
Location:
New York
Subject:
General
Subject:
Health Care Delivery
Subject:
Human Rights
Subject:
Medical - Physicians
Subject:
Physicians
Subject:
Poor
Subject:
Right to health care
Subject:
Humanitarians
Subject:
Missionaries, Medical
Copyright:
Edition Number:
1st ed.
Series Volume:
4425-4426
Publication Date:
September 2003
Binding:
Hardcover
Language:
English
Pages:
336
Dimensions:
9.57x6.46x1.20 in. 1.30 lbs.

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