Diary

by Richard Selzer

Selections from the moving, beautifully crafted diary of a celebrated storyteller and surgeon Susan Cheever observed in a New York TimesBook Review appraisal of his memoir Down from Troy that Richard Selzer "cares more about truth than consequences . . . [and] immerses us in the facts we all know but hate to admit." Selzer's Diary picks up roughly where the memoir leaves off, as his writing life flourishes and surgical career ends. Stripped of the doctor-writer's "privilege of [walking] about all day in the middle of a short story," Selzer shifts his focus to his interior life. In Diary, the author's successes and regrets, as well as the humor and sadness that surround him, are revealed with the same empathy and vividness that made him one of the great doctor-writers of modern literature.

Diary brings together stories and observations dashed off on park benches and in library carrels over the past decade. Following the success of such books as Confessions of a Knife and TheDoctor Stories, Selzer's diary entries recount life lived in the shadow of both achievement and disappointment. He introduces a varied cast of characters, from the distinguished fellowship of the "Boys Friendly" to his "fellow loonies," and evokes the streets, buildings, and parks of Yale and New Haven with vibrancy and affection. And throughout, Selzer faces the looming specter of old age. The distinctive voice that paved the way for other notable doctor-writers like Jerome Groopman and Abraham Verghese is revealed here to be no less compelling with the spotlight turned on himself and the drama of everyday living.

252 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Rita Ciresi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of Richard Selzer's work and I thank my daughter for gifting me with a copy of his diary. I loved all the quirky, crazy characters he befriends at the Yale libraries, and his self-deprecatory humor about his failing health and sexuality. Reading this funny and heartbreaking diary made me want to go back and reread all of his other work.

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I so v much enjoyed this galavant through the last few years of Richard Selzer's diary. At turns hilarious, cantankerous, and poetic -- I'm even willing to forgive his shitting on psychiatry. I think this book would be much more enjoyable for readers who have read his short stories and memoir(s) in order to put this text into context.

[Nicholas George · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd never heard of Selzer before, yet was intrigued by his book when I saw it in my local bookstore. He's a surgeon-turned-writer, and quite a writer he is: precise, elegant and far-reaching in his interests (bird watching, travel, medicine and religion as seen through the eyes of an atheist, to mention a few). For years he's kept a diary, mostly to flex his writing muscles on a regular basis, and a few years of his entries are collected here. He comes across as an oddly lovable curmudgeon; he doesn't suffer fools, but then again puts up with his "loonies" (a collection of possibly mentally ill acquaintances with whom he maintains relationships through the years) far more than most people would. This book goes all over the place, but I was never bored, and frequently paused to marvel at some of his insights and observations.