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Author Scalise, Mike, author.

Title The brand new catastrophe / Mike Scalise
Published Louisville, Ky : Sarabande Books, 2017

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Description 1 online resource
Contents Prologue: A fraction of a fraction of a fraction -- The drowning lifeguard -- More recent unfinished business -- Q & A -- The big whatever -- In the event of something unholy -- A few simple repairs -- Box-o'-man -- Posse -- Another one -- Bait -- What else can she give me but her milk? -- Gamma knife -- A certain kind of busy -- The most literal possible understanding of the world -- Game -- What okay feels like now -- Best man -- Wedding -- Jewelry -- Yacht people -- A history in caricature -- Perhaps nothing, perhaps everything -- Crazy lady -- Practice -- A universe of no accidents
Summary "Winner of the Center for Fiction's Doheny Prize Mike Scalise hits his stride in this page-turner of a memoir featuring a sudden and strange sequence of medical disasters. From its gripping ruptured-brain-tumor emergency room opening, through a series of medical procedures and oddball doctors, Scalise creates a sharply observed, uproariously funny, and deeply moving account of acromegaly, the hormone disorder best known for causing gigantism. Scalise weaves in meticulous research, social history, and vignettes about Andre the Giant and a variety of Hollywood acromegalic villains. He creates a narrative that is informative without feeling pedantic, demonstrating how he has marshaled the narrative of his life so that he can control it rather than being controlled by it. Although his medical story is the primary subject, the emotional engine driving the book is that of his relationship with his mother, a longtime sufferer in her own right, with a chronic cardiac condition likely exacerbated by her penchant for chain smoking and late-night white wine binges. Fraught, frustrating, and often very funny, Scalise's mother-often positioned as his competitor for the spotlight or the status of "best sick person"--Winds up being the book's unlikely hero. Mike Scalise's work has appeared in Agni, Indiewire, the Paris Review, Wall Street Journal, and other places. He has received fellowships and scholarships from Bread Loaf, Yaddo, the Ucross Foundation, and was the Philip Roth Writer in Residence at Bucknell University. He lives in Brooklyn, New York"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed
Subject Scalise, Mike.
Scalise, Mike -- Health
SUBJECT Scalise, Mike fast
Subject Authors, American -- Biography
Brain -- Tumors -- Patients -- Biography
Sick -- Psychology.
Diseases -- Humor
Medical care -- Humor
Mothers and sons -- Biography
Acromegaly -- Patients -- Biography
Acromegaly.
Brain Neoplasms
Acromegaly
Sick Role
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Medical.
HUMOR -- Topic -- Marriage & Family.
HISTORY -- Social History.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Literary.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
Acromegaly
Authors, American
Brain -- Tumors -- Patients
Diseases
Health
Medical care
Mothers and sons
Sick -- Psychology
Genre/Form collective biographies.
humor.
autobiographies (literary works)
Autobiographies
Biographies
Humor
Autobiographies.
Humor.
Biographies.
Biographies.
Autobiographies.
Humour.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2016028132
ISBN 9781941411346
1941411347