Phoning Home
eBook - ePub

Phoning Home

Essays

  1. 192 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Phoning Home

Essays

About this book

Phoning Home is a collection of entertaining and thought-provoking essays featuring the author's quirky family, his Jewish heritage, and his New York City upbringing. Jacob M. Appel's recollections and insights, informed and filtered by his advanced degrees in medicine, law, and ethics, not only inspire nostalgic feelings but also offer insight into contemporary medical and ethical issues.

At times sardonic and at others self-deprecating, Appel lays bare the most private aspects of his emotional life. "We'd just visited my grandaunt in Miami Beach, the last time we would ever see her. I had my two travel companions, Fat and Thin, securely buckled into the backseat of my mother's foul-tempered Dodge Dart, " writes Appel of his family vacation with his two favorite rubber cat toys. Shortly thereafter Fat and Thin were lost forever—beginning, when Appel was just six years old, what he calls his "private apocalypse."

Both erudite and full-hearted, Appel recounts storylines ranging from a bout of unrequited love gone awry to the poignant romance of his grandparents. We learn of the crank phone calls he made to his own family, the conspicuous absence of Jell-O at his grandaunt's house, and family secrets long believed buried. The stories capture the author's distinctive voice—a blend of a physician's compassion and an ethicist's constant questioning.

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Yes, you can access Phoning Home by Jacob M. Appel in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Phoning Home
  7. Two Cats, Fat and Thin
  8. Mr. Odd and Mr. Even
  9. The Man Who Was Not My Grandfather
  10. Caesura—Antwerp, 1938
  11. Sudden Death—A Eulogy
  12. An Absence of Jell-O
  13. She Loves Me Not
  14. Opting Out
  15. Charming and Devoted
  16. Livery
  17. Our Incredible Shrinking Discourse
  18. Divided Expectations
  19. About the author