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Field Guide to Falling Ill: Essays
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 us—to history, to culture, to one another.”
“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 us—to history, to culture, to one another.”
- GenresNonfictionEssays
256 pages, Hardcover
Published January 27, 2026
6 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Gleason
1 book8 followersJonathan Gleason is a writer, professor, and medical interpreter. His book "FIELD GUIDE TO FALLING ILL" won the inaugural Yale Nonfiction Book Prize and will be published in January 2026. Currently, he is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Chicago.
Gleason holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa. He is a recipient of a 2023 grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation and a finalist for the 2024 Granum Prize. His work is anthologized in Best American Essays (2024) and has appeared in The Sun Magazine, Literary Hub, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Colorado Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Indiana Review, and many others.
Gleason holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa. He is a recipient of a 2023 grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation and a finalist for the 2024 Granum Prize. His work is anthologized in Best American Essays (2024) and has appeared in The Sun Magazine, Literary Hub, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Colorado Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Indiana Review, and many others.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 6, 2026
I wrote this, and I hope you like it.
February 4, 2026
A nonfiction essay collection blending personal narrative and medical insight, examining illness through experiences like HIV testing, PrEP access, and hospital interpreting, while also exploring topics such as public violence, incarceration, opioids, organ donation, and the human consequences of medical systems.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Jonathan is a masterful and precise writer who can turn the smallest of details into a compelling narrative and chisel down large, unwieldy concepts into digestible, riveting prose. Reading his essays, I've learned a lot and had a good time doing so. Essay lovers, come get your book!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews