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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Call Number: RA418.5.T73 F33 2012
From the publisher:
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down explores the clash between a small county hospital in California and a refugee family from Laos over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child diagnosed with severe epilepsy. Lia's parents and her doctors both wanted what was best for Lia, but the lack of understanding between them led to tragedy. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest, and the Salon Book Award, Anne Fadiman's compassionate account of this cultural impasse is literary journalism at its finest.
About the Book
- First chapterRead the first chapter of The Spirit Catches You online, courtesy of the publisher.
- Review from New York Times"Ms. Fadiman tells her story with a novelist's grace, playing the role of cultural broker, comprehending those who do not comprehend each other and perceiving what might have been done or said to make the outcome different. She has read widely in the anthropological literature on the Hmong, the mountain people of Laos who, having fought on the American side during the Vietnam war, ended up fleeing their homes when the war was lost."
About the Author
photo by Connie Miller
- Anne FadimanAnne Fadiman is an author, essayist, editor, and teacher. Her first book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, tells the story of an epileptic Hmong child and her family living in Merced, California. Fadiman's sensitive, incisive treatment of the unbreachable gulf between the Hmong and American medical systems won her a National Book Critics’ Circle Award.
- Interview with the authorREADING ’TIL 3:00 AM: AN INTERVIEW WITH ANNE FADIMAN
How was this book selected?
Common Reading Selection Committee, 2017
Michele Van Hoeck, Chair, Dean of Library
Julie Chisholm, Culture & Communication faculty
Britt Elliott, Marine Transportation faculty
Margot Hanson, Library faculty
Mike Holden, Mechanical Engineering faculty
Andre Jimenez, Bookstore
Elaine Kociolek, Student Engagement & Academic Support
Alex Parker, Science & Math faculty
Amy Parsons, Culture & Communication faculty
Martin Shimada, student
Aparna Sinha, Culture & Communication faculty
Calee Spinney, Residence Life
Marissa Sutro, Marine Transportation faculty
More about the Common Reading Program objectives, selection criteria, and finalists