Field Guide to Falling Ill (Hardcover)

Jonathan Gleason

ISBN 10: 030028294X / ISBN 13: 9780300282948

Published by Yale University Press, 2026

About this Item

Hardcover. From the inaugural winner of the Yale Nonfiction Book Prize, a riveting exploration of illness and medicine that imagines a more humane form of care "What was wrong with them? That's what we wanted to know." So begins Jonathan Gleason's prizewinning collection of essays on the human lives behind the corporate, legal, and cultural practices that shape disease. Drawing on his experiences as a medical interpreter and patient, and on a decade of historical research, he illuminates a stunning range of topics, including the racial dimensions of organ donation, the past and present of the AIDS crisis, the troubled relationship between state violence and mental illness, and the trial of a doctor accused of murdering his patients. Gleason shows how medicine is influenced, compromised, and enlivened by the cultural narratives, historical contexts, and complicated people who practice it. In her foreword, Meghan O'Rourke, judge of the Yale Nonfiction Book Prize, writes that "illness is often framed as a crisis to endure or overcome on the way back to a restored 'intact' self. But as Gleason's work reminds us, illness is also a way of knowing. His essays speak to the precarious beauty of that knowing, and to the ways it connects usto history, to culture, to one another." Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780300282948

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Field Guide to Falling Ill (Hardcover)
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 030028294X
• ISBN 13: 9780300282948
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

From the inaugural winner of the Yale Nonfiction Book Prize, a riveting exploration of illness and medicine that imagines a more humane form of care
 
“What was wrong with them? That’s what we wanted to know.” So begins Jonathan Gleason’s prizewinning collection of essays on the human lives behind the corporate, legal, and cultural practices that shape disease. Drawing on his experiences as a medical interpreter and patient, Gleason illuminates a stunning range of topics, including the racial dimensions of organ donation, the past and present of the AIDS crisis, and the troubled relationship between state violence and mental illness. With sharp analysis and boundless empathy, Gleason shows how medicine is shaped by cultural narratives, historical contexts, and the complicated people who practice it.

In her foreword, Meghan O’Rourke, judge of the Yale Nonfiction Book Prize, writes that “illness is often framed as a crisis to endure or overcome. But as Gleason’s work reminds us, illness is also a way of knowing. His essays speak to the precarious beauty of that knowing, and to the ways it connects us―to history, to culture, to one another.”

About the Author

Jonathan Gleason is an award-winning writer and a lecturer at the University of Chicago, where he teaches creative writing. Meghan O’Rourke is the judge for the Yale Nonfiction Book Prize, editor of the Yale Review, and the author of The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness.