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Bodies of Truth: Personal Narratives on Illness, Disability, and Medicine
2019 Foreword INDIES Award, Gold for Anthologies
“Medicine still contains an oral tradition, passed down in the stories patients tell us, the ones we tell them, and the ones we tell ourselves,” writes contributor Madaline Harrison. Bodies of Truth continues this tradition through a variety of narrative approaches by writers representing all facets of health care. And, since all of us have been or will be touched by illness or disability—our own or that of a loved one—at some point in our lives, any reader of this anthology can relate to the challenges, frustrations, and pain—both physical and emotional—that the contributors have experienced.
Bodies of Truth offers perspectives on a wide array of issues, from food allergies, cancer, and neurology to mental health, autoimmune disorders, and therapeutic music. These experiences are recounted by patients, nurses, doctors, parents, children, caregivers, and others who attempt to articulate the intangible human and emotional factors that surround life when it intersects with the medical field.
“Medicine still contains an oral tradition, passed down in the stories patients tell us, the ones we tell them, and the ones we tell ourselves,” writes contributor Madaline Harrison. Bodies of Truth continues this tradition through a variety of narrative approaches by writers representing all facets of health care. And, since all of us have been or will be touched by illness or disability—our own or that of a loved one—at some point in our lives, any reader of this anthology can relate to the challenges, frustrations, and pain—both physical and emotional—that the contributors have experienced.
Bodies of Truth offers perspectives on a wide array of issues, from food allergies, cancer, and neurology to mental health, autoimmune disorders, and therapeutic music. These experiences are recounted by patients, nurses, doctors, parents, children, caregivers, and others who attempt to articulate the intangible human and emotional factors that surround life when it intersects with the medical field.
210 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2019
5 people are currently reading
116 people want to read
About the author
Dinty W. Moore
36 books195 followersDinty W. Moore is author of the award-winning memoir Between Panic & Desire, the writing guides The Story Cure and Crafting the Personal Essay, and many other books. He has published essays and stories in The Georgia Review, Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, The Southern Review, Kenyon Review, Creative Nonfiction, and elsewhere. He is founding editor of Brevity, the journal of flash nonfiction, and teaches master classes and workshops across the United States as well as in Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Canada, and Mexico.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 23, 2021
I searched for books like this one when I was becoming increasingly interested in Health Humanities--and kept coming up empty. In this unique collection, patients, family members, caregivers, and medical professionals all give voice to experiences of bodily, physical, mental, and emotional health (with health defined broadly). Some of these creative nonfiction essays are stunning; others made me angry at the injustices explored; and one had me ugly-crying. Thought-provoking and moving.
November 12, 2025
From 'Days of the Giants'
Days of the giants. When I was in training the attending used that phrase, often after telling a story from earlier days in medicine, describing a harrowing night on call or a now legendary professor who could pull a diagnosis out of his hat like a rabbit. 'I was there,' the phrase implied, a sign like a secrete handshake.
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Medicine still contains an oral tradition, passed down in stories: the stories patients tell us, the ones we tell them and the ones we tell ourselves. There is also the story of medicine, Medicine with a capital M, the history we place ourselves in as we construct our own narratives of becoming physicians. The names of early physicians, embedded in the names of diseases or now obscure signs used in physical diagnosis, hint at that history.
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Today advances in technology allow us the illusion that we can see what is hidden, no longer depending solely on our eyes and ears, just as sailors no longer rely on scanning the waves to detect a change in the current or the subtle difference in the color of the water that signals a sandbar.
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Upstairs on the obstetrics floor chaos reigned. We learned 'push/don't push' in Spanish and Creole and took turns 'catching' the slippery newborns. On the medicine wards, among the uncontrolled diabetics and the asthmatics struggling for breath, a growing number of patients were arriving with a puzzling set of complaints: Haitians with intractable diarrhea, a persistent cough, and weight loss; young gay men with strange purple splotches, sudden crises of fever, and rapid collapse. The emergency room was the filter through which this flood of humanity had to pass through under the watchful eyes of the Miami-Dade County police. On the wall was a bulletin board with a line of cockroaches pulled from ear canals and neatly skewered with hypodermic tips, next to a worn piece of paper on which a key to Cuban prison tattoos was printed.
Days of the giants. When I was in training the attending used that phrase, often after telling a story from earlier days in medicine, describing a harrowing night on call or a now legendary professor who could pull a diagnosis out of his hat like a rabbit. 'I was there,' the phrase implied, a sign like a secrete handshake.
---
Medicine still contains an oral tradition, passed down in stories: the stories patients tell us, the ones we tell them and the ones we tell ourselves. There is also the story of medicine, Medicine with a capital M, the history we place ourselves in as we construct our own narratives of becoming physicians. The names of early physicians, embedded in the names of diseases or now obscure signs used in physical diagnosis, hint at that history.
---
Today advances in technology allow us the illusion that we can see what is hidden, no longer depending solely on our eyes and ears, just as sailors no longer rely on scanning the waves to detect a change in the current or the subtle difference in the color of the water that signals a sandbar.
---
Upstairs on the obstetrics floor chaos reigned. We learned 'push/don't push' in Spanish and Creole and took turns 'catching' the slippery newborns. On the medicine wards, among the uncontrolled diabetics and the asthmatics struggling for breath, a growing number of patients were arriving with a puzzling set of complaints: Haitians with intractable diarrhea, a persistent cough, and weight loss; young gay men with strange purple splotches, sudden crises of fever, and rapid collapse. The emergency room was the filter through which this flood of humanity had to pass through under the watchful eyes of the Miami-Dade County police. On the wall was a bulletin board with a line of cockroaches pulled from ear canals and neatly skewered with hypodermic tips, next to a worn piece of paper on which a key to Cuban prison tattoos was printed.
June 30, 2020
This is an underrated anthology that deserves more Twitter writing community credit. Some of the essays, especially Floyd Skloot's "A Measure of Acceptance," are literally stunning. I was thrown at first by the choice to include pieces by patients, caregivers, and medical providers, as I tend to very much prioritize patients' own stories and, truthfully, distrust providers' roles within and perpetuation of a deeply problematic medical establishment that can often stand against patients' subjective experiences and quality of life needs (especially when we add social determinants into the mix). But I became more grateful for this decision as I moved through the collection, being able to see all sides of the conversation and gaining an appreciation for some providers' genuine care for their patients and for the implications of their patients' stories. Definitely glad I read this book.
January 11, 2020
A fine collection of essays that explore illness and disabilities from a wide-range of voices including patients, doctors, nurses, caretakers, and family members.
February 24, 2026
This was a fascinating read for me. I have great interest in the human body and especially how we talk about our own ailments, conditions and sufferings. This is a non-literary text covering personal narratives on illness, disability, and medicine, and the stories are excellent insights into the impact of relationships related to our illnesses and also our health. The narratives are written by nurses, doctors, patients, parents, children, caregivers and it has been described as: "a compendium of personal accounts of individuals caught up in the lived experience of illness..."
The collection is part of a movement in medical education now called narrative medicine, seeking to restore a human voice to the experience of being a patient, or a practitioner.
Many subjects in this book include: cancer, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, sever food allergies, death of a child, Down syndrome, autoimmune disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, PTSD and others.
As I continue to explore and evaluate my own contributions to narrative medicine-adjacent work, I have found this to be an emotive and truly insightful overview of how important it is for all those involved in any medical scenario to understand each others' stories.
I love this connection between Art and Science and of course it's not new, but I'm keen to promote its significance now.
Here are a few of the emotive quotations that gripped my attention:
"Medicine, like life, is made up of moments." [from Our Little Mind, Our Lie, Dr. Lie by Matthew S. Smith]
"We are not diagnosed with a deadly disease, we are merely interrupted, as if in the middle of an engaging phone conversation, and then a child tugs at the hem of your blouse to ask an absurd question that has no answer; the question is being asked purely to distract you from the current call so you may pay more attention to the child. That is is. That is cancer." [from Words about Cancer by Rebecca Housel]
"I was sixteen when I told my mother I didn't want to die." [from Type One by Riley Passmore]
"Everyone needs help sometimes, but there's an entirely different level of reliance involved when you have a disability." [Reluctant Reliance by Erin M. Kelly]
The collection is part of a movement in medical education now called narrative medicine, seeking to restore a human voice to the experience of being a patient, or a practitioner.
Many subjects in this book include: cancer, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, sever food allergies, death of a child, Down syndrome, autoimmune disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, PTSD and others.
As I continue to explore and evaluate my own contributions to narrative medicine-adjacent work, I have found this to be an emotive and truly insightful overview of how important it is for all those involved in any medical scenario to understand each others' stories.
I love this connection between Art and Science and of course it's not new, but I'm keen to promote its significance now.
Here are a few of the emotive quotations that gripped my attention:
"Medicine, like life, is made up of moments." [from Our Little Mind, Our Lie, Dr. Lie by Matthew S. Smith]
"We are not diagnosed with a deadly disease, we are merely interrupted, as if in the middle of an engaging phone conversation, and then a child tugs at the hem of your blouse to ask an absurd question that has no answer; the question is being asked purely to distract you from the current call so you may pay more attention to the child. That is is. That is cancer." [from Words about Cancer by Rebecca Housel]
"I was sixteen when I told my mother I didn't want to die." [from Type One by Riley Passmore]
"Everyone needs help sometimes, but there's an entirely different level of reliance involved when you have a disability." [Reluctant Reliance by Erin M. Kelly]
August 15, 2022
A collection of essays that go between the voices and lived realities of patients, caregivers and medical personnel. A powerful reminder that illness, disability are a perennial part of life though these have been little recognised as such. The condition of being mortal, the need for compassion and joy are part and parcel of living with illness and disability.
July 19, 2021
I bought the book thinking I might pick a few essays and ended up reading all of them. A wide look at the different points of view within the world of illness, all of them personal and revealing, many heartbreaking, many inspiring. Highly recommend.
April 28, 2020
I devoured this while in the hospital after lung cancer surgery. Variety of chilling and gorgeous perspectives.
May 22, 2023
Fantastic diversity of experiences covered, and everything short enough to teach easily.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews