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Summary: Small Story, Big Book
Review: Although the plot of this book can be summarized in a sentence, during the 400+ pages of it you learn nearly encyclopedic knowledge about each of the characters -- their motivations, their histories, their hopes and desires. You get to spend at least a chapter inside each character's head, and the author does a great job of bringing the characters to life.
The Seattle setting is completely accurate, including lots of little out-of-the-way spots only a native knows. Apparently the author's father works at the University of Washington hospital, which explains it.
I was a little disappointed by the way the plot was SO realistic -- no dramatic denouement, no resolution to several characters' turmoils, no good guys or bad guys... this was refreshing in a way but, novelistically, curiously unsatisfying. Well worth a read anyway.
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Summary: A wonderful piece of work - don't miss this one!
Review: Astounding! This book absolutely blew me away, and is probably one of the best books of the year so far. Byers has a gorgeously simplistic, elegant and, at the same time economical writing style that just sweeps you along. Not only does he manage to recreate such vivid realistic characters, but also develop a story that just commands your attention. What a talent Michael Byers is with an epic, intellectual and beautiful style that is very reminiscent of Michael Cunningham and Julia Glass. So convincing is Byers portrayal of suburban, American middle-class life that you could be mistaken for thinking that Henry, Isla, and their two children, Sandra and Darren are real people. I must confess that although I new what Hickman's disease was, I knew very little about it, so this book was a real education for me. And Byers doesn't swamp us with unnecessary scientific jargon on genetics - he gives us just enough information so that we get the drift of what is going on. The story is just a heartbreaking in its account of what people like William and his family go through in trying to cope with this illness. Much of the novel takes place in 1999 in Seattle during the dot.com boom, and one gets a real sense of the money that people were making during this time. The story also gives us a sense that this excess can't continue forever, and that the bubble must eventually burst. I think this novel works on many, many levels, provoking serious thought about modern American life - its excesses, and America's obsession with money and materialism. The novel also provides a stunning portrayal of the Seattle, which at the time faced an uncertain future with lots of civic change taking place. Through Henry, Byers effectively juxtaposes materialistic obsessions with the amazing abilities that humans can have for love, compassion and self-sacrifice and the lengths that people will go to show this. Byers places us in Henry's position and asks us the central question of what lengths would we go to save a life -a life that is probably doomed anyway. The novel also gives us an interesting insight into the legalities of gene research, and much of the story is devoted to the somewhat cold-hearted buying and selling of genetic stock. Of all the characters though, it is Isle who is perhaps the most interesting. As a new immigrant from Austria, she comes to America with a fresh eye and some interesting and funny views on the country. All the characters, both major and minor, have something to offer this story and the reader. But it is Isle's path towards self-discovery that resonates long after you have finished the book. Long for This World is a remarkable piece of work! Michael
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Summary: An Unexpected Pleasure
Review: I came across this book through one of the Seattle area purchase-circles. Its a complex story in a simple setting - the story of a family each with their own wants and needs, and a larger story of life through the father's patients, or research subjects.
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Summary: An intriguing look at the American family...
Review: I was a bit disappointed in the book because it was billed as 'medical-ethical thriller', but was much more a quiet look at an American family. That is not a problem of course, just what I expected. It is a book of quiet grace. The characters are all fleshed out and almost like people we know. They have real concerns, real ideas, real problems. The story has it's ups and downs, as in real life...it does not have huge, shattering plots twists--again, that is just right for the novel. If you are looking for a sweet, sad, and ultimately hopeful potrait of America at the turn of the century, this your book.
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Summary: A Beautiful Follow-Up
Review: It looks like I'm the first person to review this novel, so let me start by saying that I don't know Michael Byers or his publishers, and I have no vested interest in the success of his book. You can trust me, then, when I tell you how much I enjoyed it. I admired Byers's first book, The Coast of Good Intentions, tremendously---perhaps the richest, most tender and humane story collection of the past five years---and I have been wondering for some time when we would see something new from him. Now I see why it's taken so long. Long for This World is a big, delicately rendered book with a deep and expansive sense of its characters and the world they inhabit. It has all the strengths of his story collection. The prose is easy and precise, polished in a way that never calls too much attention to itself, and the people he creates never seem less than authentic. A few of his characters are science fiction readers, and while there are none of the conventional trappings of science fiction in this book, occasionally a mood of fantasy creeps in at the very edges, as though the world is threatening to burst open and become something no one ever could have expected. Michael Byers isn't the sort of writer who can do everything (the momentum of his stories can be very slow, and I'll confess that there are times when my interest in Long for This World seemed to lag behind his own), but what he does do, he does very, very well. That is, he lends careful, sympathetic consideration to the minds of his characters and to every detail and color of what passes through them. His books seem to be written according to the same philosophy that's expressed by one of his characters toward the end of the novel---"not that it was bad luck to waste things, but that anything that existed was too precious to waste." The best thing about Long for This World is that it makes you experience that preciousness for yourself.
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Summary: Sloppy research, but a great book!
Review: LONG FOR THIS WORLD sets up a quite believable situation where a medical researcher is suddenly handed a cure for Hickman's Syndrome (Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome) and given a possible chance to save a beloved patient. The setting and medical details are incredibly accurate and the characters are believable. Maybe they are a bit too realistic, though, for fiction. The trials and tribulations of two teenage characters are full of the angst and trivial details too common in teenagers. If not for the teenage boy's clandestine friendship with his father's Hickman patient, it would have been boring. The fact that he never confessed this friendship or their midnight adventure was a let down. The adult characters, too, have their own priorities. The ending is as satisfying as it can be given the realism of the story. This book was filled with good information about a little understood disease and the interactions between doctor and patient, patient and teenage son, and doctor and parents of the patient are good. I'd recommend the book for that. Children who actually suffer from progeria (mercifully few) should not read this book.
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Summary: Ethical Dilemmas on A Human Scale
Review: Michael Byers shares with us many fallible and well-intentioned characters in his novel of discovery and loss. Set in and around Seattle, Washington, we encounter Dr. Henry Moss, a medical researcher working with children afflicted with Progeria (a rapid-aging disorder). Moss lives with his Austrian-born wife, Ilse (also a doctor) and their two teenaged children, Sandra and Darren.
Dr. Moss' work and patients deeply affect him. One boy in particular, William Durbin, touches a chord inside Henry's heart. He deeply regrets being unable to save this particular child and wishes he could halt the rapid destruction of his bones, skin and tissues. By absolute chance, he encounters another family whose elder son has a mutated strain of the disease. He is seventeen, an age unheard of for someone with Hickman's, and seemingly in perfect health. Could this boy's cells hold the answer to what medical science had previously hoped to find? Should Dr. Moss research this new set of cells (and endanger his own career in the process) in order to help William Durbin survive?
We are shown the everyday dilemmas of people who are set slightly aside from the rest of us. Doctors charged with the care and knowledge to not only help their current patients, but to possibly change medicine and the world. Teenagers who struggle to stay close to their family when each member is pulling away in his or her own direction. Neighbors who flaunt their material possessions and withhold honest friendship are united by another's mysterious actions. Throughout, we are reminded that chances not taken and thoughts left unsaid can be an albatross around our necks.
This novel is an insightful gem into the worlds of medicine and human relationships. It should not be left unread.
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Summary: Half Done, But Loving It
Review: So far this book is captivating. The writing is detailed and moving. The characters seem real. Michael Byers' dialogue seems so natural. A joy to read. I was up half the night reading it.
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Summary: Sloppy research, but a great book!
Review: What a wonderful book! The characters are very well done. I chose this book because I suffer from a chronic disease (and hope for a cure), but then I enjoyed Ilse's immigrant points of view, having met my US husband in Europe myself (I'm from Germany). However, I would have expected better research of Ilse's background: Ilse's mother gives her marks when Ilse leaves for Paris - but the currency of Austria used to be the Schilling, not the Deutsche Mark (now it's the Euro). When Ilse speaks German, it sounds like straight out of a dictionary - no grammar knowledge whatsoever. And so on and on... Byers knows how to write and does it very well, so maybe he just needs an assistant for the research part. Despite its shortcomings, I loved the book and will recommend it.
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Summary: Do not miss this novel.
Review: What a wonderful surprise this book is! Michael Byers shows that he can bring his gift for short-story writing to a novel, and the characters explode deep and fully-developed from the first line and grow from there. The result is a very fine and moving read. Henry Moss is a research doctor working on Hickman, a condition that causes children to age rapidly and die prematurely. As he tests the DNA of a new patient's family, he discovers that the boy's 17-year-old brother has a blood mutation that might permit him to stop the syndrome's deadly progress. He is faced with the most human of dilemmas when he must decide whether to try the new enzyme on a dying child before testing is even begun. A very kind and decent man, Henry is wracked by the possibilities he faces: he may lose his license, he may save a life, or he may become incredibly rich-a possibility he sees all around him in mid-90's Seattle where the book is set. Everyone in "Long for this World" is a marvelous creation. Henry's Austrian wife, Ilse, has a story of her own and a martinet mom who has moved to a nearby condo. His daughter is a gifted athlete, and his son a sweet, goofy 14-year-old. You become engrossed in the lives of his favorite Hickman patient and his family, and in the family of the strange atypical-positive teenager who is the catalyst for so much hope. "Long for this World" will entrance everyone who picks it up because of its humanity, humor, and warmth. This is exemplary fiction not to be missed.
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