ECHOES OF HEARTSOUNDS: A Memoir of Healing by Martha Weinman Lear
Open Road Media, September 16, 2014
“Ms. Lear [tells] an emotional story with humor and precision. . . . A consummate writer like Ms. Lear would never dream of enunciating the obvious moral, but the message is that like the body, the heart and the mind can be amazingly resilient.”—The New York Times
“Directly evokes her riveting, unsparing memoir Heartsounds. In the earlier work her husband, Hal, a beloved doctor, had a massive heart attack, followed by complications that led to his death at 57. The irony is not lost on Ms. Lear when, 30 years later, she has a coronary and ensuing infection and finds herself in the same hospital ward with the same attending physician. . . . Although she finds kindred spirits among many of the medical professionals, she is also afflicted with some of the same ignominy, the coldness, the cruelty that assaulted her first husband. Of course she is terrified that her outcome will be the same as her husband’s. But despite the parallels, Ms. Lear is far too clever and introspective a writer to be content with comparing and contrasting two myocardial infarctions.”—The East Hampton Star
“A testament to the power of human love and the will to live!”—Publishers Weekly
“Absorbing, wild, funny, tender, enraging, absolutely remarkable . . . An awesome and gripping book. It is about loving as much as about dying.” —The New York Times Book Review
