White Hot Light: Twenty-Five Years in Emergency Medicine

Huyler (Right of Thirst) shares dramatic and often intimate glimpses into his life as an ER physician in this haunting collection of 16 essays. “The Boy,” the first essay, instantly grabs readers’ attention with the piercing sentence, “When they brought him in, he was almost alive.” This and other essays focus on a single case, as in “The Wedding Party,” where Huyler learns of an old classmate’s terminal lymphoma. Others, including “Jehovah” or “The Gun Show,” recall the seemingly endless series of patients Huyler has treated. A few essays peek into the bleak job of working in an ER. In “Mercy,” Huyler is surprised to see the tears of another attending physician, while “The Sunflower” explores the hospital at night, “purer at night than in the day... [with] the sense of being left alone, where no one bothers you,” but with the caveat that “time falls upon you more heavily.” In “The Snow Storm,” Huyler delves into his identity as a son as well as a doctor, driving hours through the night to be at his hospitalized father’s side. Huyler’s compassionate perspective and gripping stories result in a memorable account of the life he leads and the patients he sees, and sometimes saves. (Aug.)