Everything is Everything
John Green Jon Krakeur Jon Ronson Jon Freedland
I had no idea when I started Everything is Tuberculosis that its author, John Green, was ‘The Fault in our Stars’ John Green. I mean, there are a ton of John Greens. I assumed this one was a doctor or an epidemiologist with a specialised interest. When I realised he was in fact the novelist, and he has used his vast success (Fault in our Stars sold about 15 million copies) to become a humanitarian and charitable trustee it immediately made me feel incredibly ashamed of my life. I’ve sold a few books in my time, and all I do is play my stupid harp and eat crisps.
Anyway, Wikipedia tells me he became interested in TB whilst busy improving maternal medical care in Sierra Leone, whilst suffering from chronic health issues of his own....honestly, now I feel COMPLETELY rubbish. Okay, so I sponsor my wee cousin’s MMA career, that’s not exactly the same now is it? When the day comes and the eternal scales are weighed?
Stanlee ‘Big Country’ Wilson
Well, despite my ongoing guilt, this remains absolutely my kind of book. Erudite and informed, that very best type of American, Bill Bryson style, although with fewer jokes.
Non-fiction is a hard sell these days: the numbers are really down. People blame podcasts, which do True Crime self- help and history incredibly well. I also blame the tendency of some publishers to wrap up some blindingly obvious truths- or even some quite interesting ones- in four hundred unnecessary pages. Far too many non- fiction books, particularly anything connected with dieting, ‘thinking’ or celebrity wellness, can be fully gleaned from their introductions, and are then padded out with lots of who knows what, (these days, probably with stuff about that astounding new invention, the Menopause).
But a classic non-fiction book is SUCH a joy. A great story, brilliantly told and, best of all, true, is such a wonderful thing. I look back with such happiness on reading The Perfect Storm, or Into Thin Air, or almost all of Jon Ronson, one of my favourite writers. The dedication and commitment to the truth and the story are humbling, when it’s all worth it. One book I always keep up my sleeve to recommend because nobody doesn’t like it is Jonathan Freedland’s The Escape Artist, the extraordinary story of the wilful, astonishing Rudolf Vrba who escaped from Auschwitz and tried to tell the world. These books take years and obsessive dedication, but when done right, feel immortal.
Into Thin Air, about one of the worst Everest disasters (from a long, entirely unnecessary list, eyeroll), isn’t for everyone, but it nonetheless pinned me against a wall when I read it, not too long after the disaster. I breathed every line of it in total horror. It’s a totally visceral experience, one of those books that shows you just how far reading can penetrate your soul, the damage writers can inflict on themselves for truth. It was an extraordinary confluence of the right writer in the right place at the right time- Krakeur was a journalist covering the commercialisation of Everest- and it took a heavy toll on its author. It’s a masterpiece, and reminds me of all those incredibly boring astronaut books, and that famous line from one of my all-time favourite films (and books), Contact- ‘you should have sent a poet‘.
As a random aside, did you know that those Fox Mole Horse books, in which a horse makes rather generic soulful remarks about things, are also classified as non-fiction? Although I would have a more convincing argument here if it wasn’t the case that that other great talking horse*, Black Beauty, genuinely was non-fiction and changed the law of the land.
Anyway, Everything is Tuberculosis- and chapeau, what a knack Green has for a catchy title- is full of astonishing facts- that TB has caused 1 in 7 deaths of EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER LIVED. That New Mexico is only a state because of it. But it is also a nailbiting story of a young man who shares a name with his own son he meets in a terrible hospital in Sierra Leone, a country that has failed in every conceivable way. A lifetime ago, when I had a real job, I worked in a hospital and the only cases we ever saw were in recent arrivals, or in the homeless community who couldn’t complete the drug regimen. But it still kills, unnecessarily, over a million people a year worldwide.
This is a tremendous little work, full of interest and insight, righteous fury, but also that knowledge that, despite the horrifying news, some things in our world are getting a better, and that good people who make millions from something as frivolous as writing novels are out there pouring their time and energy into making the world a better place. Ugh. Okay, right I am off to, at the very least, adjust a few direct debits.
No Author Humiliation this week, I am already feeling quite humbled enough,
Love,
Jen xxx
* Sorry Bree, but it would just go to your head