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The Pharmacist's Mate
Fusselman's first book weaves surprising beauty out of diverse strands: death and sea shanties, guns and artifical insemination, World War II and AC/DC. Highly personal but always engaging, this book reveals the humor and beauty throughout Fusselman's grief following her father's death. Original cover art by Marcel Dzama.
86 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews
May 26, 2017
......... *NON FICTION* GREAT DISCOVERY .......reads like a fiction!!!
This is a story about Amy Fusselman. She tells us - in detail like I've never read before - her struggles to get pregnant.....in the months before and after the death of her dad.
The narrative is sparse- ( can't 'not' notice how eye-catching it is)......its marvelous..... weird ... funny ....sad....poetic...., and SHORT! ( less than 100 pages)
"The Pharmacist's Mate", juxtaposes Amy Fusselman's story of death, insemination, and music, with excerpts from her father's World War II journal, written while he was the Pharmacist's Mate on the Liberty Ship 'George E. Pickett'.
If you are interested in any of the following subjects, you may like this book:
Death, insemination, AC/DC, Guns, fear of guns, attraction to babies, fear of babies, desire for boats, boats, Clomiphene Citrate World War II, Medical Students Bumbling Along as Best They Can under Difficult Circumstances, Ultrasound, Howard Barker's 'Scenes from An Execution', helplessness, The absurd, time, alternate perceptions of space, alternate relations to Sea Shanties, Graham Crackers, Pornography.
Sample writing:
"Yesterday I was at the gym, on the elliptical trainer. I was thinking about my uterus.
My uterus which, I have read, is almost infinitely expandable. And I was picturing my uterus with its lining of blood, empty except for once-a-month when the microscopic egg bobs around in it like a single life preserver in the ocean".
"And then I was picturing dots and dashes of sperm, like the sudden eruption of a ship's SOS".
"And I was thinking how strange it is that he's tiny circles and lines ping-ponging around my uterus are powerful enough to burst into a life."
"And as I was thinking this it was like a door opened, and I looked up and thought, my dad is here. And I looked up at the air in front of my elliptical trainer, the air that did not look like anything unusual, it just looked like regular air hanging out between people and things, and I said, hi dad, without using my voice, and I smiled."
If offbeat small books kinda excites you.... this slim-jim will do the trick!
This is a story about Amy Fusselman. She tells us - in detail like I've never read before - her struggles to get pregnant.....in the months before and after the death of her dad.
The narrative is sparse- ( can't 'not' notice how eye-catching it is)......its marvelous..... weird ... funny ....sad....poetic...., and SHORT! ( less than 100 pages)
"The Pharmacist's Mate", juxtaposes Amy Fusselman's story of death, insemination, and music, with excerpts from her father's World War II journal, written while he was the Pharmacist's Mate on the Liberty Ship 'George E. Pickett'.
If you are interested in any of the following subjects, you may like this book:
Death, insemination, AC/DC, Guns, fear of guns, attraction to babies, fear of babies, desire for boats, boats, Clomiphene Citrate World War II, Medical Students Bumbling Along as Best They Can under Difficult Circumstances, Ultrasound, Howard Barker's 'Scenes from An Execution', helplessness, The absurd, time, alternate perceptions of space, alternate relations to Sea Shanties, Graham Crackers, Pornography.
Sample writing:
"Yesterday I was at the gym, on the elliptical trainer. I was thinking about my uterus.
My uterus which, I have read, is almost infinitely expandable. And I was picturing my uterus with its lining of blood, empty except for once-a-month when the microscopic egg bobs around in it like a single life preserver in the ocean".
"And then I was picturing dots and dashes of sperm, like the sudden eruption of a ship's SOS".
"And I was thinking how strange it is that he's tiny circles and lines ping-ponging around my uterus are powerful enough to burst into a life."
"And as I was thinking this it was like a door opened, and I looked up and thought, my dad is here. And I looked up at the air in front of my elliptical trainer, the air that did not look like anything unusual, it just looked like regular air hanging out between people and things, and I said, hi dad, without using my voice, and I smiled."
If offbeat small books kinda excites you.... this slim-jim will do the trick!
July 9, 2007
I hate the star scoring system. This book was delightful: candid, moving, funny, excitingly structured, if not ruthlessly edited. Slender: 102 pages including the afterword. I liked holding it in my hand, so light! Dave Eggers called it "a brief miracle of a book." The Village Voice review said it was, ultimately, more like a stack of post-it notes by the phone than it was a book. Both are kind of right.
November 13, 2007
the marcel dzama cover on nice paper aside. this is the quietest book on the shelf. and the most powerful. the tiniest little book of beauty and sadness and goodness. it fills your heart up with handclaps and tambourines and perfect harmonies. i read this wrapped up in an afghan that my grandmother had made before she died. wrapped up against the winter coming in through the cracks of the windowsills. through the 1950s thin paned windows themselves. it came right through the window and walls. to my bones. in the end. in the closing of the book and putting my hand on the cover. over the marcel dzama cover. or you. in putting the book on your handed down table. or on your thrift store table that held one thousand books. the pages of authors dead and dying and slipping into obscurity and this one on top of those. beneath a soft light. i closed it. and put it on the table. where in the tables time it had seen one hundred thousand drinks. all scotch and waters in depression glass. cups of coffee in heavy syracuse china cups. i put the book down and stared at it for that moment where the afghan becomes yarn in old hands i havent held in many years. where the table again holds crayon drawings from my childhood. drawings hung on refrigerators and then lost. my heart full of handclaps. the hardwood floors turned into a dance floor where couples from the buffalo of my mind swing and turn to the sweetest polka you ever heard. tuba's blurting. accordions. and drums and everyone swinging and turning and smiling while children climb beneath tables drinking orange soda from glass bottles.
February 2, 2011
I grabbed this in a bookstore thinking it might be a chess book. It isn't. It's a memoir. Amy Fusselman is trying to get pregnant while mourning--and terribly missing--her father who has just died of complications brought by his emphysema(after being comatose for a while). He started smoking very young (at age 12), stopped when he was already 50 years old but, despite quitting, he still had emphysema. This could have been written by my sister. She is also childless, our father had emphysema, started smoking very young, quit the habit late in life then fell victim to a smoking-related death after being comatose for several days.
Some novels confront the reader with an avalanche of words yet the reader's mind goes blank in a swirling mass of confusion. This one, in contrast, is spare. Short sentences, staccato even, with the words--carefully picked--strutting along meaningfully like they're whole paragraphs. The emotions conveyed are vivid and the story is clear and engaging.
As if Amy Fusselman has invented another way to write.
Some novels confront the reader with an avalanche of words yet the reader's mind goes blank in a swirling mass of confusion. This one, in contrast, is spare. Short sentences, staccato even, with the words--carefully picked--strutting along meaningfully like they're whole paragraphs. The emotions conveyed are vivid and the story is clear and engaging.
As if Amy Fusselman has invented another way to write.
March 14, 2017
I read this in my early twenties and one particular anecdote stuck with me, a paragraph about the author and a moment when she is exercising on the elliptical machine a few weeks after her father died, and she feels his presence there in the air all of a sudden.
Anyway, this is a memoir written in the style of disconnected paragraphs similar to Dept. of Speculation, and it's about the death of the author's father and her attempts to get pregnant, interspersed with snippets from her father's WWII diary of being a pharmacist's mate on a merchant marine ship. It's immediate and thoughtful and engaging and holds up well 15 years later.
Anyway, this is a memoir written in the style of disconnected paragraphs similar to Dept. of Speculation, and it's about the death of the author's father and her attempts to get pregnant, interspersed with snippets from her father's WWII diary of being a pharmacist's mate on a merchant marine ship. It's immediate and thoughtful and engaging and holds up well 15 years later.
August 20, 2024
perfectly concise and genuinely very funny. read in one sitting on the floor of a bookstore
March 24, 2024
This is a good book to read at your favorite outdoor people-watching locale so you can be reminded with it that everyone around you is exactly as weird as you are.
April 14, 2011
This book is like an exceptional piece of jewelry: small, exquisite, gorgeously rendered, and valuable. The title refers to Fusselman's father's time working on a ship, as opposed to 'mate' as we tend to consider it in terms of partnership. It is just this kind of seamlessly logical but emotionally unexpected divergence that is given full range through the brief 86 pages of this story.
The author is telling the story of her struggle to get pregnant in the months before and after the death of her father. The narrative is sparse and striking, and reads much more like a lengthy short story than a traditional non-fiction memoir on the twin subjects of life and death. There are moments that she veers towards poetry, in the distillation of emotion, if not in execution or form.
What is it about my dad being dead that I can't say it enough? That I feel like My Dad is Dead would be a good name for my son?
That I can picture myself saying, "I can't talk right now, I have to pick My Dad is Dead up from hockey?"
The story itself is ephemeral and ethereal, refusing to be firmly rooted in either plot or space. It exists squarely in a place of disembodied strangeness, a vaguely familiar terrain of landmarks both compelling and discomfiting. It exists most fluently in the relationships it captures between the characters. It shows far more often than it tells, but when it does tell, it does so in a way that is so subtle and moving that you are holding a significant revelation that you did not even notice being handed to you.
I wish there were a better word to describe Frank than "husband." "Husband" means we had a nice party one day, where we ate cake and said words.
Here is what I would like: if there were a word to describe the person who is in your band, the person who stands onstage beside you, in front of the crowd of people, and sings the song you wrote, the song you are too afraid to sing, which is why you are the guitarist. And the song is called "I Love My Mom," and he sings the words like they are not about moms, or love, at all. He sings the words like they are a way to say, "I am going to pinch you."
She doesn't say much more about her relationship with her husband. She doesn't need to.
The main reason that I am giving this book four stars instead of five is that it is, as a piece of memoir, so elusive. It gives you the strong desire to sink your teeth into this writing, but the writing itself never resolves itself into anything more than a small morsel of experience. The book is, at times, so intimately revealing that the reader feels almost as if this is what mind reading must be like. But Fusselman is a careful chronicler, and invites you to look in through this window for all too brief a period of time.
The author is telling the story of her struggle to get pregnant in the months before and after the death of her father. The narrative is sparse and striking, and reads much more like a lengthy short story than a traditional non-fiction memoir on the twin subjects of life and death. There are moments that she veers towards poetry, in the distillation of emotion, if not in execution or form.
What is it about my dad being dead that I can't say it enough? That I feel like My Dad is Dead would be a good name for my son?
That I can picture myself saying, "I can't talk right now, I have to pick My Dad is Dead up from hockey?"
The story itself is ephemeral and ethereal, refusing to be firmly rooted in either plot or space. It exists squarely in a place of disembodied strangeness, a vaguely familiar terrain of landmarks both compelling and discomfiting. It exists most fluently in the relationships it captures between the characters. It shows far more often than it tells, but when it does tell, it does so in a way that is so subtle and moving that you are holding a significant revelation that you did not even notice being handed to you.
I wish there were a better word to describe Frank than "husband." "Husband" means we had a nice party one day, where we ate cake and said words.
Here is what I would like: if there were a word to describe the person who is in your band, the person who stands onstage beside you, in front of the crowd of people, and sings the song you wrote, the song you are too afraid to sing, which is why you are the guitarist. And the song is called "I Love My Mom," and he sings the words like they are not about moms, or love, at all. He sings the words like they are a way to say, "I am going to pinch you."
She doesn't say much more about her relationship with her husband. She doesn't need to.
The main reason that I am giving this book four stars instead of five is that it is, as a piece of memoir, so elusive. It gives you the strong desire to sink your teeth into this writing, but the writing itself never resolves itself into anything more than a small morsel of experience. The book is, at times, so intimately revealing that the reader feels almost as if this is what mind reading must be like. But Fusselman is a careful chronicler, and invites you to look in through this window for all too brief a period of time.
Read
June 12, 2021Ik wilde dit niet lezen en toch las ik het uiteindelijk maar. Waarom ik het niet wilde lezen weet ik niet; ik weet het misschien. Ik liet me leiden door Goodreads-reviews met minder dan drie sterren, is wat ik nu, achteraf, zo denk. En als je dat doet, kun je niks meer lezen op sommige boeken na die inderdaad geen lager-dan-drie-sterren-beoordeling krijgen.
Ik ben blij dat ik het las want het is erg mooi. Het is erg mooi zonder dat ik weet of ik het objectief goed vind, dat weet ik niet en kan ik ook niet weten waarschijnlijk. Eigenlijk bedoel ik; ik heb geen zin om erover na te denken of ik dat wel of niet vind.
Waarom ik het als erg mooi bestempel is omdat ik het bijzonder vond en de schrijfwijze ritmisch is en speels, waarbij vanaf een ietwat koele afstand de dood van een vader wordt beschreven, de wens om zwanger te worden, om een familie te hebben, een man, een stad om je heen, een ziekenhuis waar je in- en uitgaat voor verschillende zaken, een opdracht om het geluid te maken bij een toneelstuk dat een schilderij uitbeeldt, muziek en een voorkeur voor beurtzangen überhaupt; 'wat is muziek?', tijd en andere observaties, oh en dagboefragmenten van een vader van zijn tijd op een schip (wat me weer deed denken aan Miek Zwamborns boek Oploper). Er waait een soort bries door dit boek en er waait een soort gemoedelijkheid doorheen die misschien dan komt kijken wanneer veel in het dagelijkse leven met schrijf-afstand wordt beschreven en die schrijf-afstand een speelsheid met zich mee draagt, ook daar waar speelsheid misschien niet altijd in het echt als speels wordt ervaren.
(De Nederlandse vertaling lijkt niet helemaal te kloppen hier en daar, maar dat was niet zo erg eigenlijk.)
Ik ben blij dat ik het las want het is erg mooi. Het is erg mooi zonder dat ik weet of ik het objectief goed vind, dat weet ik niet en kan ik ook niet weten waarschijnlijk. Eigenlijk bedoel ik; ik heb geen zin om erover na te denken of ik dat wel of niet vind.
Waarom ik het als erg mooi bestempel is omdat ik het bijzonder vond en de schrijfwijze ritmisch is en speels, waarbij vanaf een ietwat koele afstand de dood van een vader wordt beschreven, de wens om zwanger te worden, om een familie te hebben, een man, een stad om je heen, een ziekenhuis waar je in- en uitgaat voor verschillende zaken, een opdracht om het geluid te maken bij een toneelstuk dat een schilderij uitbeeldt, muziek en een voorkeur voor beurtzangen überhaupt; 'wat is muziek?', tijd en andere observaties, oh en dagboefragmenten van een vader van zijn tijd op een schip (wat me weer deed denken aan Miek Zwamborns boek Oploper). Er waait een soort bries door dit boek en er waait een soort gemoedelijkheid doorheen die misschien dan komt kijken wanneer veel in het dagelijkse leven met schrijf-afstand wordt beschreven en die schrijf-afstand een speelsheid met zich mee draagt, ook daar waar speelsheid misschien niet altijd in het echt als speels wordt ervaren.
(De Nederlandse vertaling lijkt niet helemaal te kloppen hier en daar, maar dat was niet zo erg eigenlijk.)
May 19, 2012
This 86-page mini-memoir comes with a cover price of $16 and a lot of random, seemingly unedited blurbs (rare is the paragraph in this volume that is longer than five lines) as the author muddles through various attempts at impregnation and the death of her father. There is little coherence or logic here, and the volume reads like a last-minute collection of diary entries cobbled together by an MFA student facing a deadline. I am informed by the back cover flap that the author, from 1993-98, "published a small magazine of her writings and drawings called 'Bunnyrabbit'." And that should really tell you everything you need to know about this precious little book that tries so very hard to be meaningful and deep, but reads like the disjointed musings of an ADD-afflicted mope.
Here is the author on smoking: "What does it mean that someone thinks they need a cigarette many times a day? What does it mean to need fire like that? Fire all the time? Does it mean you are too watery? Does it mean you feel you have no spark?"
The whole book is like that.
I was very interested in the excerpts of her father's WWII-era diary included amid the pointless ramblings, and would much rather have read his entire journal than his daughter's feeble attempts at making connections between her experiences and his. I don't mean to sound callous, but just because your father died and you can't get pregnant doesn't mean you have anything to say.
Here is the author on smoking: "What does it mean that someone thinks they need a cigarette many times a day? What does it mean to need fire like that? Fire all the time? Does it mean you are too watery? Does it mean you feel you have no spark?"
The whole book is like that.
I was very interested in the excerpts of her father's WWII-era diary included amid the pointless ramblings, and would much rather have read his entire journal than his daughter's feeble attempts at making connections between her experiences and his. I don't mean to sound callous, but just because your father died and you can't get pregnant doesn't mean you have anything to say.
Read
February 14, 2016Read this a long long time ago, but probably did not finish it. The only thing I can recall about it is that it was very ery sad adn somber and subdued. At the time of my reading, it prefigured a few important life events that I was perhaps not prepared for when they ended up happening (however remotely) and I know that I did not pay attention to this book's demands very well at the time, though it certainly did seem "right" for me to ignore this book while I was pretending to be reading it, as it happened by sheer force of will.
July 15, 2010
The previous generation dies, the following generation tries to get born, the generation in between mediates. This is Universal Experience. Which makes it literarily convenient if these things line up in your life, though not necessarily thrilling for others to read about. Even if you convey them with a certain spare grace and poetry.
But I think I spent only one dollar on this, and read it entirely on my ride home from work, so I can't really complain.
But I think I spent only one dollar on this, and read it entirely on my ride home from work, so I can't really complain.
April 2, 2009
I'm going to call this book the little wonder from now on. Because it is so little, and so wonderful. And on page 52, just below the word shimmering, there is a small thread shaped like a sperm. And that is very appropriate for this book. Maybe other copies have this too. I certainly hope that they do.
October 11, 2013
This book is the perfect mix of funny, tender, sad, and awkward. It made me want to hug everyone. But not in a creepy way, in a "Hey, this thing we are all experiencing called life? It's tremendously difficult and strange but also often wonderful, right?" kind of way.
October 8, 2022
I am stunned that anyone could love this book as much as the many 5-star reviews seem to indicate. Did I miss something? This book is 3 stories: 1) her father’s journal excerpts from when he was a
pharmacist’s mate on a ship in 1946, 2) her attempts to get pregnant, and 3) her attempts to deal with her father’s death. The attempts to get pregnant were sort of interesting. (And she DID get pregnant, but then, naturally, left us wondering if, because the heartbeat didn’t show up at the early ultrasound, but was expected to at her next appointment, is the fetus alive, or not?) Her father’s journal was basically uninteresting— this happened then this happened then this happened — with no reflection and very little of his personality. Losing a parent sucks and is hard. But I literally didn’t get anything out of her going on and on about it that I didn’t already know. Let me pick at this a little more. I resent the way she will deliberately start several sentences in a row with “And.” That does not happen on accident. I’m sure her intent was to deliver more impact or meaning, but all it delivered to me was irritation at the intrusion of the author’s presence into my reading experience. And really, for such a little book (which did NOT lead to it being reasonably priced), there are an awful lot of her thoughts that really didn’t need to come out of her head and onto the page. That’s just my opinion. I’m glad other people enjoyed it, but I’m not reading anything else she wrote even though I had to buy this one with “8” included. Life is short and reading time is limited.
pharmacist’s mate on a ship in 1946, 2) her attempts to get pregnant, and 3) her attempts to deal with her father’s death. The attempts to get pregnant were sort of interesting. (And she DID get pregnant, but then, naturally, left us wondering if, because the heartbeat didn’t show up at the early ultrasound, but was expected to at her next appointment, is the fetus alive, or not?) Her father’s journal was basically uninteresting— this happened then this happened then this happened — with no reflection and very little of his personality. Losing a parent sucks and is hard. But I literally didn’t get anything out of her going on and on about it that I didn’t already know. Let me pick at this a little more. I resent the way she will deliberately start several sentences in a row with “And.” That does not happen on accident. I’m sure her intent was to deliver more impact or meaning, but all it delivered to me was irritation at the intrusion of the author’s presence into my reading experience. And really, for such a little book (which did NOT lead to it being reasonably priced), there are an awful lot of her thoughts that really didn’t need to come out of her head and onto the page. That’s just my opinion. I’m glad other people enjoyed it, but I’m not reading anything else she wrote even though I had to buy this one with “8” included. Life is short and reading time is limited.
November 19, 2020
I really connected with this short piece of non fiction literature.
This is Amy's story of her struggles to get pregnant after the death of her father. It is also her father's story as she interspersed her narrative with journal entries from her father's time as a Merchant Marine.
I had some personal parallels from this book. Her father's death was eerily similar to my father's death. Not the cause, but the way and conversation. Also strangely enough my mother and I have been looking for a gun of my father's since his passing and that is a small part of this narrative as well.
Those were not the reasons for 5 stars. I felt the writing was brilliant. I was highly engaged. I connected with her struggles, even those I had not experienced.
This is Amy's story of her struggles to get pregnant after the death of her father. It is also her father's story as she interspersed her narrative with journal entries from her father's time as a Merchant Marine.
I had some personal parallels from this book. Her father's death was eerily similar to my father's death. Not the cause, but the way and conversation. Also strangely enough my mother and I have been looking for a gun of my father's since his passing and that is a small part of this narrative as well.
Those were not the reasons for 5 stars. I felt the writing was brilliant. I was highly engaged. I connected with her struggles, even those I had not experienced.
October 3, 2020
I didn’t know this was a memoir until I finished it and opened up Goodreads to record that I’d read it. I thought I was reading a novella. Turns out I wasn’t. I think that might’ve changed how I felt about it as I was reading it, if I’d known, but as it is, I didn’t. I found moments of this sincerely moving and lovely, but a lot of it just felt like it was kind of there. Like it wasn’t clear to me why it felt worth including. The writing is often unadorned and kind of abrupt, though it occasionally opens up like stepping out of thick woods to find yourself on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Knowing now what it is I was reading, I may read it again, to see if it strikes me differently.
August 24, 2023
I really shouldn't be left unsupervised in a used books store. I'm going to pick up every strange-looking little book and add it to my stack. That's exactly what happened with this little delightful novel -- and yes, it's weird to describe a book that's about a woman grieving the death of her father while also trying to get pregnant. But that's such an accurate word. The prose is spare but sharp, and the arrangement of the story is interesting in so many ways. I really enjoyed this reading experience.
August 4, 2018
Not sure what to say about this one.
Certainly was humorous.
It's a story of a lady trying to be a mother which included a story about losing her father (who was a Pharmacist's Mate during WWII). In between her stories, her father's journal during his time as a Pharmacist's Mate was shown as well.
Something different, this one.
Was a short read.
Certainly was humorous.
It's a story of a lady trying to be a mother which included a story about losing her father (who was a Pharmacist's Mate during WWII). In between her stories, her father's journal during his time as a Pharmacist's Mate was shown as well.
Something different, this one.
Was a short read.
December 26, 2021
Bleh. Not a fan. Spare writing, she appears to be the most annoying person ever. Normal people don't call the manufacturer of an ultrasound machine to ask them why gel is required... they are not that entitled, they look it up like everyone else.
Oversharing before it was a thing. I am just unimpressed.
Oversharing before it was a thing. I am just unimpressed.
June 11, 2018
A quirky little memoir about losing a parent and gaining a baby in the same brief window of time. All the weird and painful thoughts, all the frustration of being full of love with nowhere to put it. Short but sweet.
January 19, 2024
2 stars because you wrote a book… but really not. The story was probably meaningful to the author but meaningless to me. I didn’t like her so I didn’t like her story. Would have stopped reading if it wasn’t so short.
December 31, 2025
A fantastic memoir dealing with the writer grieving for her father while trying to get pregnant. Her story is interspersed with scenes from her father's diary while stationed on a Navy ship. It's funny, sad, moving, and relatable.
June 5, 2017
Loved it.
September 22, 2018
Fusselman’s prose are tight and spunky. I loved them. I only refrain from giving it five stars because it was a tad too dreary for me.
September 12, 2019
Fusselman contemplates her father's life (as a pharmacist's mate in the Merchant Marines during WWII) and death while dealing with infertility. She eventually conceives after having given up on IFV.
September 26, 2020
I read this slim, poetic memoir in one sitting (actually, lying down).
April 4, 2021
Lukewarm sensation. I was expecting more. It had some nice fragments, though.
August 17, 2021
An overlooked, modern classic. Beautiful writing, witty, urbane and full of feeling. Truly a tale of death and rebirth.
May 6, 2022
I love the author's voice. Beautiful book.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews