book review: A History of the Present Illness by Louise Aronson
The backstory: A History of the Present Illness was longlisted for the 2014 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize . The basics: A History of Present Ilness is a collection of short stories, some very loosely linked with characters, that examines different aspects of the contemporary health system in San Francisco. Louise Aronson has both an M.D. (from Harvard) and an M.F.A. My thoughts: Regular readers know I am not a huge fan of short stories, but when I read them, I prefer collections to be thematically linked. Thus, the premise of A History of the Present Illness excited me. Through these stories, Aronson beautifully explores humanity. As I read, I found myself stopping after most stories to ponder them. Aronson manages to explore many themes in these stories, and her variety was a pleasant surprise. The collection's second story, "An American Problem," tells the story of a family of Cambodian immigrants and firmly establishes the ambition of this collection: “In ...