Swallow: Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration, and the Curious Doctor Who Extracted Them

At first, I read Mary Cappello’s Swallow as a layperson’s painful prodding at the beautiful but shrouded world of medicine. I doubted that her strange descent into the archives of Chevalier Jackson’s memoirs and collections could bring up anything solid or meaningful. I felt myself missing the writing of Oliver Sacks, a medical professional who can do his field justice, and has the structure and language to put together a brilliant novel that is welcoming to any reader. However, I found in Cappello’s writing something very fresh and appreciated. Through her ponderings and meanderings through the motives and motions of patients and doctors lives, through the deceptively simple actions of swallowing and breathing in foreign bodies, she gives the audience a door, a passage into the curious pathways of her mind. Cappello’s reasoning, the curiosity and almost obsessive exploration of her subject inspires one to find meaning in her work, and attempt to follow her through some dense and sometimes frustrating passages.It’s fascinating to see how Cappello appreciates her subject- Chevalier- and his own form of poetry, the flowery way in which he describes his spelunking into the throats and various cavities of the human body. She pursues a full portrait of his life. An exploration of not only his career, but his childhood and his traumas, his motivations and desires, the things that made him tick and the parts of medical histories that he’s chosen to leave out or fail to examine. She treats all the characters of her book in a similar fashion, pursuing them through their histories and future lives after their brush with the good doctor.

Swallow is unique, fascinating, deep, probing, frustrating and, once in a while, infuriating. Ostensibly a work of biography and medical history, it is also a book of musings, digressions, contemplation and memoir. While her research into Jackson, his world, his technique, his legacy is painstaking and wide-ranging, her explorations of his psyche, constantly drawing in subtext from everything from art history, the civil war and reconstruction, gender studies, word-play, and so on (and on) can get a little wearying.Jackson, a medical pioneer by any measure, is certainly worthy of attention and remembrance - he was by all evidence, a fascinating, curious and singular individual. His specialty, the removal of foreign bodies inhaled or ingested, is inherently seductive, if in some ways morbidly so. And there is much here that does justice to both. And many of the author's musings and digressions are themselves the equal of the main subjects. However, not all digressions are created equal and too often the text wanders far-afield and becomes downright dense. This is not an easy read. That in and of itself is not a problem, but getting lost and confused in the meandering is, at least for this reader.I give four stars for the book's many admirable qualities - it is a pleasure to read well-crafted prose on pretty much any topic, and the topics here are worthy. I have to express some reservations, though, as the book too often wanders into the ether and some of the connections the author makes strike me as being a stretch and / or kind of beside the point. As a whole, a worthwhile experience, but not without the occasional wish that it would just shut up and get back to the good stuff.

The hybrid nature of this book blew my mind. As a lover of poetry, experimental writing of all sorts, and occasionally, the essay, I was drawn in from start to finish. This was even before I heard the author perform an illustrated reading from the book, which, again, was one of the most unforgettably brilliant experiences I’ve ever had at a literary reading. Cappello is now one of my new go-to writers when I want my world to be shaken, transformed and put back together in an elegant, startling, and inevitably uncanny way. In this, she seems kindred altogether with her subject: the medical pioneer and gifted eccentric, Chevalier Jackson. I was daunted by Cappello’s dedication in this book both to Jackson’s life, his life’s work, and the lives of his patients. There is love here, and so much more. Swallow is one of the most intriguing and beautifully written books you’re ever going to read. Some day I hope to thank the author personally for writing this book, but for now my humble review will have to do.

A dazzling sketch of a pioneer doctor and the objects he retrieved from the bodies of his patients.With the same care and precision Chevalier Jackson once exhibited within the human body, Cappello examines his work and what it means to be human, vulnerable, swimming in the reckless depth of every breath.I would say this book offers a rich tapestry of thought that adds to our collective consciousness of medicine and magic. With a poet's sensibility, Cappello questions what few are willing to plummet. To read this work of nonfiction, "We might have to ask why we say we swallow our pride and not our envy, anger or greed." For this sentence and so many more, I am in wild admiration of this marvelous and powerful work.To open this book called Swallow, we take an unflinching look within, to every beautiful and tender corridor.

Perfect condition

Wonderfully written, fascinating tale. Highly recommended!!

meh

Good

I read a review of this book in the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, and was thrilled with the low-price of the kindle edition. Even better was the fascinating life story of Dr. Jackson, and the countless lives he saved a century ago, given the medical technology at the time. Not your typical biography however, as the author did seem to go off on tangents at times.