Heart Wiseguy: How to Live the Good Life After a Heart Attack

Beginning with the candid admission, ""Considering my raucous lifestyle and unrestricted appetites, nobody deserved a heart attack more than me,"" Cartwright takes readers back to his days as a young newspaper reporter in Texas, where the habits that nearly killed him were formed. For decades, Cartwright worked as a journalist, screenwriter and novelist, founding with writer Bud Shrake the ""Mad Dogs,"" which recruited the likes of actors Howard Hesseman and Dennis Hopper and the woman who would be the governor of Texas, Ann Richards (who contributes a foreword here). After two divorces, Cartwright was still not deterred from his steady diet of alcohol, tobacco, drugs or spicy, fat-laden foods, while ""one by one,"" as he recalls, ""my old pals were hitting the wall."" While several of Cartwright's friends suffered and died from emphysema, throat cancer, diabetes and liver damage, Richards and Hopper went into rehab and sobered up. Finally in 1988, a heart attack and bypass surgery filled Cartwright with a genuine resolve to live and to take responsibility for his health. Cartwright brings his firsthand experiences and insights to life, but he also lends impressive journalistic skill to the issues of heart and kidney disease, hypertension, diet, exercise and aging. This is a first-rate mix of rollicking entertainment and sound health advice. Author tour. (May)