Heartsounds

"When it comes to medical memoir, Martha Weinman Lear literally wrote the book. . . . The story of her first husband's slow death from intractable heart disease set a bar for the genre so high that few of the thousands of similar books published since have come close to duplicating its power. . . . Anyone at all interested in the problems of modern medicine should probably keep Heartsounds on an accessible shelf and reread it every decade or so. It is a book for the ages." -The New York Times

"An absorbing, wild, funny, tender, enraging and absolutely remarkable account . . . This is an awesome and gripping book. It is about loving as much as about dying. . . . I came away from Heartsounds feeling sad and glad-and very, very shaken." -Maggie Scarf, The New York Times Book Review

"A testament to the power of human love and the will to live!" -Publishers Weekly

"Heartsounds is a book that reads like a fine novel. . . . A rare, beautifully written cry against the modern ways of death, against death itself: It is worth every degree of the pain it takes to read it." -Joanne Greenberg, Chicago Sun-Times

"Heartsounds, a deeply felt account of a brave doctor's fight for a full life after a crippling heart attack, is both a celebration of an enviably good marriage and a cry of outrage-a book filled with love and honor and roaring against the night." -Mordecai Richler, Book-of-the-Month Club News

"It hurts, illuminates, loads the circuits with rage, transmits the energy of a great love . . . Beautifully written!" -Gail Sheehy

"Exhilarating-thanks to Lear's proud honesty!" -Gore Vidal

"It is Love Story made honest and life-size!" -Ira Levin

"The most moving love story I have ever read." -Joanne Woodward

"Written from the heart . . . It has much to say about the human spirit. I can't imagine anyone reading this book without feeling the better for it." -Norman Cousins

"No praise is too high for Heartsounds. . . . An extraordinary book . . . Martha has done a remarkable job balancing her love story with Hal, her desperate, angry struggle to save him, along with tough, specific reportage on the medical profession. . . . What a sense Martha has for anecdote, for character, for time and place . . . for life." -Patricia Bosworth

"The most courageous book I have ever read . . . A brilliant, powerful love story." -Nancy Friday

"This is so lusty, so passionate and powerful a love story that it seems to stand up to death itself." -Marlo Thomas

"A searing chronicle of grace under pressure . . . Readers may learn to make that ultimate toast with which Martha Lear concludes her book: L'chaim-to life." -The San Francisco Examiner

"Engrossing, touching and very frightening . . . Martha Lear is an eloquent, powerful writer." - Dr. William A. Nolen, The Washington Post

"Unsparing, proud . . . One weeps through the last chapter." -Los Angeles Times

"A deeply stirring book . . . Though the story is a familiar one, I have never before read it set down with such power and emotion." -John Barkham Reviews

"A riveting account of life and love and, yes, death." -The Washington Star