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The Pharmacist's Mate
Named "It" Discovery Writer of the Year by Entertainment Weekly, Amy Fusselman took readers and critics alike by storm when McSweeney's published this powerful little book. In The Pharmacist's Mate, she writes of her father's death and her own attempts to become pregnant, weaving in excerpts from her father's World War II journal-written while he was a pharmacist's mate on...more
Paperback, 112 pages
Published
October 29th 2002
by Penguin Books
(first published 2001)
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Jul 09, 2007
Amy
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
readers who want to start and finish a book in one sitting
I hate the star scoring system. This book was delightful: candid, moving, funny, excitingly structured, if not ruthlessly edited. Slender: 102 pages including the afterword. I liked holding it in my hand, so light! Dave Eggers called it "a brief miracle of a book." The Village Voice review said it was, ultimately, more like a stack of post-it notes by the phone than it was a book. Both are kind of right.
the marcel dzama cover on nice paper aside. this is the quietest book on the shelf. and the most powerful. the tiniest little book of beauty and sadness and goodness. it fills your heart up with handclaps and tambourines and perfect harmonies. i read this wrapped up in an afghan that my grandmother had made before she died. wrapped up against the winter coming in through the cracks of the windowsills. through the 1950s thin paned windows themselves. it came right through the window and walls. to...more
This 86-page mini-memoir comes with a cover price of $16 and a lot of random, seemingly unedited blurbs (rare is the paragraph in this volume that is longer than five lines) as the author muddles through various attempts at impregnation and the death of her father. There is little coherence or logic here, and the volume reads like a last-minute collection of diary entries cobbled together by an MFA student facing a deadline. I am informed by the back cover flap that the author, from 1993-98, "pu...more
Apr 14, 2011
Joanna
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
books-read-2011,
non-fiction
This book is like an exceptional piece of jewelry: small, exquisite, gorgeously rendered, and valuable. The title refers to Fusselman's father's time working on a ship, as opposed to 'mate' as we tend to consider it in terms of partnership. It is just this kind of seamlessly logical but emotionally unexpected divergence that is given full range through the brief 86 pages of this story.
The author is telling the story of her struggle to get pregnant in the months before and after the death of her...more
The author is telling the story of her struggle to get pregnant in the months before and after the death of her...more
I grabbed this in a bookstore thinking it might be a chess book. It isn't. It's a memoir. Amy Fusselman is trying to get pregnant while mourning--and terribly missing--her father who has just died of complications brought by his emphysema(after being comatose for a while). He started smoking very young (at age 12), stopped when he was already 50 years old but, despite quitting, he still had emphysema. This could have been written by my sister. She is also childless, our father had emphysema, sta...more
Dec 04, 2010
Christina
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommended to Christina by:
Dave Eggers
Shelves:
fiction
"And this is how I come face to face with my selfishness, because I don't know if I can enjoy this goldfish without knowing that he loves me, or if not loves me, then at least depends on me, i.e., swims up to my fingers greedily when I fill them with salty-smelling rainbow-colored flakes, and wiggle them over his head.
And this is disturbing to realize, that I have such difficulty enjoying anything that doesn't know I exist. Especially when I stop and think how big the world is, the world that is...more
And this is disturbing to realize, that I have such difficulty enjoying anything that doesn't know I exist. Especially when I stop and think how big the world is, the world that is...more
Feb 13, 2012
Diane
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Diane by:
my literature professor
Shelves:
required-reading,
2012-reads
Oh, chocolate fudge sundae! I don't know how to write a paper on this! What will I write??? PANICKING!!! :O
This book probably has the most memorable first line I've ever read: "Don't have sex on a boat unless you want to be pregnant." It doesn't really sum up what the story is about unlike other books, but the opening line was important. And it doesn't hurt to say that when my friends read the line, they all exclaimed 'Uy! mukhang maganda to ah!'.
The humor did not dwindle or stayed in the first...more
This book probably has the most memorable first line I've ever read: "Don't have sex on a boat unless you want to be pregnant." It doesn't really sum up what the story is about unlike other books, but the opening line was important. And it doesn't hurt to say that when my friends read the line, they all exclaimed 'Uy! mukhang maganda to ah!'.
The humor did not dwindle or stayed in the first...more
Oh, how I loved you little book. And I mean, really really loved. Others do not seem to share my penchant for adoring and carrying around this book, but it doesn't matter to me, I will re-read--and love again--this book. Not that much really happens. But the voice of the narrator, and the little journal entries from the seaman father, were light, funny, conversational engaging. It skips and beats, goes in long rushes, then gently reveals the sadness underneath the story (don't worry, though, it...more
Eighty-nine pages. Short passages. This novella packs a punch. The narrator's attempts to get pregnant using increasingly sophisticated medical interventions; intertwined with the narrator's attempts to come to terms with her father's death; both of these interspersed with excerpts from her father's diary from WWII when he was a "pharmacist's mate" in the merchant marines. Yes, it all adds up. It's funny without trying too hard. It's poignant and poetic and feels real, even when the author is de...more
Mar 25, 2009
ginger-kitty
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
contemporary-fiction,
book-club
okay, so I didn't read the last 10 pages because I spilled tea all over the book and the pages are stuck together, so if I may have missed a critical part. Let me say though, for such a short book, it took me along time to get through it. I found the author's stream of consciousness writing style kind of off putting, and was more interested in her dads journal entries. I guess I just didn't really relate to the main character very well, so didn't really care about her plight. This book does have...more
It's a good read so far, but very sad.
I bought this book by almost complete chance and it turns out it's about her father dying at the same time she's trying to get pregnant.
This is weird, because her father and my father died in almost identical circumstances and I just realized (while reading this last night) that the previous day was the anniversary of my father's death. Strange how we miss these things for a moment when life gets so messed up with demands and details of the present.
But I en...more
I bought this book by almost complete chance and it turns out it's about her father dying at the same time she's trying to get pregnant.
This is weird, because her father and my father died in almost identical circumstances and I just realized (while reading this last night) that the previous day was the anniversary of my father's death. Strange how we miss these things for a moment when life gets so messed up with demands and details of the present.
But I en...more
The previous generation dies, the following generation tries to get born, the generation in between mediates. This is Universal Experience. Which makes it literarily convenient if these things line up in your life, though not necessarily thrilling for others to read about. Even if you convey them with a certain spare grace and poetry.
But I think I spent only one dollar on this, and read it entirely on my ride home from work, so I can't really complain.
But I think I spent only one dollar on this, and read it entirely on my ride home from work, so I can't really complain.
A slim volume, this is one of those perfect little books I'm glad I own, because having read it it is now my good friend. Its protagonist narrates this tale in first person; she wants a baby, and is having trouble conceiving. She resorts to an ancient Chinese herbal regimen, which tastes terrible. This book isn't so much about the plot as the voice of the narrator, and her inner life, and, well...I just really like her. I think you will too.
Oct 18, 2012
Kate
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
four-star-reads,
someone-else-s-memories
It only takes about an hour or two (with plenty of interruptions) to read the author's thoughts on time and space, living and dying and making babies.
I like the author's brain. I also very much like her dad's writing as well.
Just like her book "8", this is probably not a book I will actively recommend to very many but will enjoy privately and will recognize wonder and awesome in anyone that likes it too.
I like the author's brain. I also very much like her dad's writing as well.
Just like her book "8", this is probably not a book I will actively recommend to very many but will enjoy privately and will recognize wonder and awesome in anyone that likes it too.
I'm going to call this book the little wonder from now on. Because it is so little, and so wonderful. And on page 52, just below the word shimmering, there is a small thread shaped like a sperm. And that is very appropriate for this book. Maybe other copies have this too. I certainly hope that they do.
A beautiful little piece of magic, read it in one night. Makes you feel glad to be alive, yet utterly aware that all shall pass away as well. Little nuggets of observation envelope you, first book that's inspired me to do writing of my own for awhile.
I liked this little book about a woman trying to get pregnant and deal with the recent death of her father. Passages from her father's journal when he was in his twenties interspersed within her story are a nice touch.
I almost feel like I missed it. Its length (<100 pages, spaced very loosely) works with its precious tone, but I'm not sure anything ever really got going. Maybe I should read it again?
This is a beautifully written little book that is part prose part poetry that focuses on mourning death juxtaposed with the anxiousness and trials of bringing new life into the world. Heavy at times but it delivers.
knowing nothing about this before i picked it up at a bookstore on vacation, i decided to take a chance, and i wasn't sorry. amy fusselman might be my new author crush.
Amazing book. If they made kids read books like this in high school maybe more people would love literature. If you don't like this book then I don't like you.
How this book manages to contain itself in Fusselman's open and engaging tone is a pleasant mystery. The writing is absolutely effortless, which is, of course, the hardest thing to do. Worth it for the restraint despite all appearance to the contrary.
This is a really beautiful, small book about a woman whose father is dying at the same time she is having a difficult time trying to conceive a child. The heartbreaking-ness is interspersed with excerpts from her father's WWII Navy diary. It is a really pretty and sweet book, from the usually pretty great McSweeney's.
honest account of father’s death and attempt to get pregnant – short read that packs a powerful punch (NF)
Every word in this thin little volume is perfectly placed. Fusselman gives the smallest gestures such poetic force.
This charming book reads like poetry as the author describes her unique interactions with life and death.
this book is a perfect little book. and a perfect little book about grief. i don't know how that happened.
A very sweet quick read about a woman struggling with her attempts to get pregnant and her father's death.
I can't even remotely remember what happens in this book, but I do recall that I enjoyed it.
Light-hearted, quick read. Nice style, very NY and on-the-go book for the 20/30 something.
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Jul 10, 2007 07:40am
Jan 04, 2009 07:55pm