A History of the Present Illness

“In A History of the Present Illness Louise Aronson invites us to bear witness as people—with very little fanfare, but with a profound sense of truth—to come to terms with what it really means to be a flawed, sick human being in a flawed, sick world. These stories are about medicine exactly in the way that medicine is about life: here hospitals contain whole worlds, physicians contain their patients, and the emotional and physical gestures of the urge to heal contain the whole fruitful and fruitless work of human connection.” —Chris Adrian

"A History of the Present Illness is a collection of stories about doctors and their patients, and about the chronic and presenting situations that bring them to crisis. Eudora Welty described the work of another physician/story writer by saying that 'Chekhov's candor was exploratory and painstaking—he might have used it as the doctor in him would know how, treating the need for truth between human beings as an emergency,' words that seem to me to also apply here. Aronson's quest, too, is for that truth." —Antonya Nelson

“Some of the most startling and memorable stories I’ve ever read. A History of the Present Illness is a fascinating study of our fragile human condition, both physical and emotional.  Here is a writer—and a doctor—whose empathy for her people, her characters, springs forth on every page.” —Peter Orner

"In A History of the Present Illness, Louise Aronson reveals her remarkable range of voice, from bedwetting Cambodian girl to elderly Jewish man; from paralyzed Bad Boy to pampered ex-surgeon who drinks to forget her depression.  If you've ever wondered what goes on behind the closed doors of the sick and the wounded—not on television or in movies but really—then this is the book for you. Compassionate and even anguished, though quietly, Dr. Aronson paints a dark, Rembrandtian portrait, where the faces are solemn, and the clothes and circumstances precisely fit to man, woman, and child. Fiction it may be, but it has the palette and the ring of truth." —Victoria Sweet, author of God’s Hotel

"Aronson effectively illustrates just how jumbled life can be. Hope is limping barely one step ahead of sadness. Human devotion and division, responsibility to self and others are only a smidgen of the subject matter examined by talented and knowledgeable Aronson." —Booklist

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