Book Review:- Strong Medicine
Authored By: - Arthur Hailey
Strong Medicine is a book of many nuances of a pharmaceutical industry and the people involved in it. It describes in its story a life of a girl Celia Jordan starting her career from a sales woman to the reach of presidency of the company. It unveils good and not so good facets of a pharmaceutical industry, and its impact on the society as a whole. It gives you a chance to live a life in the pharmaceutical industry with Andrew Jordan, a wise doctor, Sam Hawthorne, a mundane corporate man, Vincent Lord, a greedy technical specialist and Martin Peter Smith, a brainy scientist.
The story starts with Celia and her feministic struggle to enter into a male dominated pharmaceutical industry of 1950’s. It speeds up with her bold, gutsy and honest attitude in her professional life that ladders her to the new heights of success with her each move. Andrew Jordan, a very wise doctor and her loving husband supports and protects her from getting illusive by the outside world. He indirectly helps her in taking right decisions at the right time. The story entails with the risky moves of Vincent Lord to compete in this greedy world, with Sam Hawthorne who as a dedicated corporate man tries to do everything right for the so- called pharmaceutical company, Felding- Roth in the book and with Martin Smith, and his genetic research work to make people being able to hold their smartness of brain till a relatively older age. All this in combination makes a complete description of good, bad, happy, sad lives and times of people of the pharmaceutical industry.
The book is written in a way that at the end you will feel like, you just lived a life in the pharmaceutical industry. It is like a description of a small time of that industry, and it ends like a day in your normal non fictional life. The prose’s so methodically written and the arguments so intelligently crafted that you will just love it; and the description and the debate in 160-180 page is the best in the complete book. The thoughts of the characters described in the book are so wise and clear that you will be amazed at some times, wondering that can somebody write it like this…..and Andrew Jordan is a treat to all the women, he is such a lovely husband, I would like to have some part of my attitude to be like him.
At the end I will say that Arthur Hailey always creates magic for me, and I sometimes find myself thinking that not enough books of his are left in my- to-read list. You will only find this book good, if you live with the characters without your presumptions. If you do so, you will find yourself loving all works of Arthur Hailey.
The book is worth grabbing, read it or gift it.
