This is a brief update to information I shared with you last October: in the posting I have just linked, I told that a book I had co-authored with Bill Russell, a cousin of mine, and Mary Ryan, was to be published in spring 2020. The book's title is A Family Practice: The Russell Doctors and the Evolving Business of Medicine, 1799-1989.
I'm happy to tell you that this book did appear in print several days ago, pandemic slow-down, shut-down and all. Here's the page for it in the spring catalog of University of Arkansas Press, which contains a generous recommendation by Annie Anderson of the Country Doctor Museum in Bailey, North Carolina. She writes,
A meticulously woven study of medical history set within the context of a family of healthcare practitioners spanning generations. The thoughtful examination of each doctor's education, career, choices, and challenges is connected to the larger trends in medical practice. The authors' insightful account of the Russell family doctors speaks to the enduring legacy of the compassion, dedication, ambition and ingenuity of country doctors.
Google Books also has a nice preview copy of the book available, which allows you to see some of the book's contents and to dip into it.
Needless to say, we three authors are celebrating — from a safe distance — and plan to enjoy barbecue sandwiches tomorrow while sitting in Bill Russell's garage six feet apart. Ask us if we'd recommend having a book published during a worldwide pandemic, and we might advise you to choose some other time for that project.
Though who really had much choice with any of this, in the first place?
The graphic is the front cover of the book, designed by Liz Lester. I think it's very handsome, but as my father often told my mother when she opined that her children were nice-looking, "Darling, every crow thinks her chicks are the blackest."
