Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 16, 1992 TAG: 9202160243
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: E-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BOOKS IN BRIEF
Koop: The Memories of America's Family Doctor.By C. Everett Koop, M.D. Random House. $22.50.
There's a great political cartoon reprinted in this book, showing a feisty-looking Koop at a podium holding up reports on diet, smoking, AIDS and sex. A warning label on the podium reads: "The General Public has determined that C. Everett Koop is one big royal pain." That's putting it mildly. Liberals hated him for his stand on abortion; conservatives (many within the Reagan administration) were after him for his campaign to get explicit information out to the public about AIDS; and just about every interest group had something to say about Surgeon General Koop's pronouncements about American health. With Koop it wasn't a matter of loving or hating him - you loved and hated him.
As an autobiographer, Koop approaches his subject the same way he approached every issue: with honesty, clarity and single-minded determination. He gives us the straight scoop on his tenure in the Reagan administration, his positions on everything from AIDS to the rights of handicapped infants to our health care system. On the latter, Koop delivers a typically stinging indictment, calling it "our health care non-system" and advocating a "thorough overhaul" of the industry. The book also takes the reader through Koop's early days as a youngster growing up in Brooklyn in the 1920s, his education as a doctor and career as a leading pediatric surgeon.
He writes, "My whole career had been dedicated to prolonging lives, especially the lives of the people who were weak and powerless, the disenfranchised who needed an advocate: newborns who needed surgery, handicapped children, unborn children, people with AIDS." "Koop" is thoroughly enjoyable whether you agree or disagree with his opinions on health issues.
-STEPHANIE TAMES
The Judas Kiss.
By Norman Katkov. Dutton. $21.95.
Norman Katkov's newest novels begins in Vienna in 1937. In that pivotal year, Carly Siefermann meets two very different men who will change her life. Nick Gallanz, Jewish and an architect who loves theater, charms Carly instantly and involves her with his friends, against the wishes of her family. Much more to the Siefermanns' taste is Baron Fritz Von Gottisberg. Wealthy and charming, he falls in love with Carly and increasingly wants her for his wife. The stage thus set, Vienna and the novel are both ready for Hitler's entrance.
In exchange for Carly's agreeing to marry him, Fritz arranges for Nick and his family to escape to Italy. At the same time, Fritz ingratiates himself with the Nazis to protect his Von Gottisberg heritage, and Carly enters the anti-Nazi resistance movement secretly.
Again, World War II provides the background for a story of romance and danger. Carly, Nick and Fritz are successfully created characters, and their paths, naturally, cross as the three develop during the course of the war. The novel's title becomes clear as the war and the characters move toward their conclusions.
-HARRIET LITTLE
Ambrose Bierce is missing.
By Joe Nickell. University Press of Kentucky. $22.00.
"Ambrose Bierce Is Missing and Other Historical Mysteries" is a breath of fresh air in an atmosphere where more people seem to believe more fantastic explanations for things all the time.
The Nazca plains in Peru are marked by ancient drawings of various figures whose outlines can only be fully appreciated from the air. Since no aircraft existed when they were drawn, writers like Erich von Daniken immediately conclude that they are landing fields for alien spacecraft and that the aliens directed the primitive drawings from above.
Nickell and some other researchers demonstrated how the figures could be recreated in their geometrical perfection using only sticks and strings to measure the lines and angles at ground level, just as the primitive artists could have done. While it is true that the drawings are best appreciated from the air, Nickell shows they can be appreciated from hillsides as well. Another alien visitation refuted.
Other chapters look into what may have been behind the disappearance of 19th-century writer Ambrose Bierce, how the identity of the Nazi known as "Ivan the Terrible" was confirmed, why it is unlikely that Daniel Boone carved all those messages on trees, whether Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter for which he is famous, and why the Shroud of Turin is most likely a hoax.
Maybe rationality will yet prevail.
-PAUL DELLINGER
Stephanie Tames writes on health care issues from Statesboro, Ga.\ Harriet Little teaches at James River high school.\ Paul Dellinger writes for the Southwest Virginia bureau of this newspaper.