Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 6, 1994 TAG: 9411160063
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By Eileen Nechas and Denise Foley. Simon & Schuster. $22.
This book deals with the widely held notion that women are treated unfairly by the medical community. The authors make their point by inference from anecdotes and by exhaustive documentation from serious studies of the matter.
It may be impossible for a male physician to review their book even-handedly.
Their thesis is well-taken but partly overdrawn, presumably to emphasize their point dramatically. Medicine, like the other learned professions, has been a male preserve for generations. That accounts for some bias. Some individual physicians "just don't get it" because they are culturally or constitutionally insensitive. That accounts for more. And some research, however well-intentioned, turns out in retrospect to have been badly designed in excluding women. More bias there.
If their book leads to a general raising of consciousness and the requisite political action, then the authors will have achieved success. The profession of medicine, as an integral part of society, will respond. Indeed, some of their arguments are "old" news because change is well under way.
- SIDNEY BARRITT
A Better Place.
By Barbara Hall. Simon & Schuster. $21.
Thomas Wolfe's "going home" adage rings true in Barbara Hall's "A Better Place," set in a small Virginia town. Our heroine, Valerie Caldwell, returns to her home town of Maddock to find comfort in dealing with her failing marriage and career. She finds little welcome from her former best friends and jilted ex-fiance, Joe, now married to her best friend, Tess.
Feeling that she had talent, Valerie left Maddock to find fame as an actress in Los Angeles, but never got past the beginning stages. Her husband Jason neglects her for his screenplay writing, so she escapes to her beloved Maddock - a better place. She should have stayed put. Valerie may once have been special, with her blonde hair and charm, but she wasn't a very nice person, made keenly obvious as the fluffy story rolls on with reminders of her ill-treatment of others and of gardenias and proms. She has no regard for others and instances of this come to haunt her as she wanders through the town flirting with cadets in the nearby military academy, and blatantly tries to renew her affair with Joe.
Even her parents are not eager to have her stay. Fortunately for everyone, she returns to Los Angeles, but not before causing problems, including two deaths, in Maddock. Tom, the policeman, attributes most of these unusual upsets to "dog days."
Hall is not kind to her characters. There's not a single likeable one in the lot, with the most unattractive and harsh mothers imaginable. She brings out the worst in these Southern ladies as she flits from one airy character to another.
Hall does have skill as a writer, but she fails to stimulate an interest in this quasi-Harlequin romance. Perhaps the best audience for the book would be young females who are searching for true romance and are content with predictability. Or maybe it's the dog days.
- KATHLEEN RATLIFF
Winston-Salem: A History.
By Frank V. Tursi. Blair. $34.95.
Not just a book for North Carolinians, journalist Frank Tursi's history of Winston-Salem is full of fascinating facts and stories about much of American life.
Winston-Salem's history begins with the American Indians settling along the Yadkin River. The arrival of the Moravians and the founding of Salem provide a look at Europeans' impact on the Western hemisphere, especially in light of such notions as the sinful nature of owning slaves, except when the Church does it.
Textile mills, common throughout the South, exhausted workers but made owners rich. Then came King Tobacco, which founded such institutions as Duke University and provided jobs for many North Carolinians. (Tursi downplays its killing thousands of them and other Americans yearly.)
R.J. Reynolds is famous and not just for tobacco factories, but also for philanthropy and his family. One of the most fascinating stories in Tursi's book concerns the mysterious death of Reynolds' youngest son, Zachary Smith Reynolds. The family feared scandal if his alleged murderer, a showgirl, were prosecuted.
Tursi's history of Winston-Salem is told in manageable, interesting bites. Readable prose, attractive layout and loads of pictures make it fun to read. It's not as great as a visit to Old Salem, the restored Moravian town, but it's a good slice of American pie.
- M. KATHERINE GRIMES
Sidney Barritt is a Roanoke physician.
Kathleen Ratliff is a former English teacher who loves to read.
M. Katherine Grimes, a North Carolina native, teaches English at Ferrum College.
by CNB