His Brother's Keeper
One Family's Journey to the Edge of Medicine
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Narrated by:
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Victor Bevine
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By:
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Jonathan Weiner
About this listen
Stephen Heywood was 29 years old when he learned that he was dying of ALS - Lou Gehrig's disease. Almost overnight, his older brother, Jamie, turned himself into a genetic engineer in a quixotic race to cure the incurable. His Brother's Keeper is a powerful account of their story, as they travel together to the edge of medicine. The book brings home for all of us the hopes and fears of the new biology.
In this dramatic and suspenseful narrative, Jonathan Weiner gives us a remarkable portrait of science and medicine today. We learn about gene therapy, stem cells, brain vaccines, and other novel treatments for such nerve-death diseases as ALS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's - diseases that afflict millions, and touch the lives of many more. "The Heywoods' story taught me many things about the nature of healing in the new millennium," Weiner writes. "They also taught me about what has not changed since the time of the ancients and may never change as long as there are human beings - about what Lucretius calls 'the ever-living wound of love".
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Jamie, Stephen, and Ben are the Heywood brothers, adoring daredevil sons of a retired therapist and MIT professor. At 29, Stephen, a carpenter, is diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a progressive fatal condition that bombs nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, collapsing voluntary muscle control, and making it hard to chew, swallow, speak, even breathe. Paralysis is nearly certain. His Brother’s Keeper: A Story From the Edge of Medicine, by Pulitzer Prize-winner Jonathan Weiner chronicles the Heywood family’s deeply human, defiant response to Stephen’s grim prognosis. Victor Bevine narrates with perceptive, poignant stillness. His meditative pacing steadies the frantic deadline of the premise: find a solution or lose Stephen. Bevine applies the same pebble-smooth reverence to Weiner’s own sorrow when he learns his mother, Ponnie, is dying from a similar, rare neurogenerative disease.
As brother-built dynasties go, the Heywoods are enthralling. Jamie, the eldest, is a charismatic compulsive talker who quits his job to cure ALS. A trained mechanical engineer, Jamie studies gene therapies and hires “guerilla scientists” to develop experimental treatments and pioneer stem-cell research. In the process, he ruins his marriage to Melinda — an exuberant belly dancer with a PhD in medieval French literature.
Stephen is six-foot-three and blindingly handsome. He’s wry and observant, a self-taught architect who finds his calling rebuilding old, rotting historical homes. The worthy anchor of His Brother’s Keeper, Stephen despises pity and fuss. He marries, fathers a son, and works with his hands as long as he can. “The more he lost, the stronger he seemed,” Weiner notes of Stephen, by then, skeletal and wheelchair-bound, nourished by liquid Ensure his mother, Peggy, pours into his stomach tube. Ben is the youngest Heywood, an engineer like Jamie and their father. He’s creative and logical, a practical risk-taker as droll and dynamic as the rest of his tribe. Still, and always, though, the love story belongs to Jamie and Stephen. —Nita Rao
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"Weiner has a master's eye for the telling detail and a spare, often poetic style. His terse recounting of the seminal advances and setbacks in genetic engineering in the late 1990s provides the scientific counterpoint to the Heywood family drama." (The Washington Post)
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Truly Enlightening
- By Marie on 01-31-20
By: Dr. Bennet Omalu, and others
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Splendid Solution
- Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio
- By: Jeffrey Kluger
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Salk became a cultural hero and icon for a whole generation. Now, at the fiftieth anniversary of the first national vaccination program, and as humanity is tantalizingly close to eradicating polio worldwide, comes this unforgettable chronicle. Salk's work was an unparalleled achievement, and it makes for a magnificent listen.
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Excellent book
- By Tim on 08-10-06
By: Jeffrey Kluger
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Concussion (Movie Tie-in Edition)
- By: Jeanne Marie Laskas
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Jeanne Marie Laskas first met the young forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu in 2009, while reporting a story for GQ that would go on to inspire the movie Concussion. Omalu told her about a day in September 2002, when, in a dingy morgue in downtown Pittsburgh, he picked up a scalpel and made a discovery that would rattle America in ways he’d never intended. Omalu was new to America, chasing the dream, a deeply spiritual man escaping the wounds of civil war in Nigeria.
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If you know, come forth and speak.
- By Cynthia on 12-14-15
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Knocking on Heaven's Door
- The Path to a Better Way of Death
- By: Katy Butler
- Narrated by: Katy Butler
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Like so many of us, award-winning writer Katy Butler always assumed her aging parents would experience healthy, active retirements before dying peacefully at home. Then her father suffered a stroke that left him incapable of easily finishing a sentence or showering without assistance. Her mother was thrust into full-time caregiving, and Katy became one of the 24 million Americans who help care for aging parents. In an effort to correct a minor and non - life threatening heart arrhythmia, doctors outfitted her father with a pacemaker.
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A better way to narrate a book about death?
- By MAUREEN on 10-21-13
By: Katy Butler
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The Inheritance
- A Family on the Front Lines of the Battle Against Alzheimer's Disease
- By: Niki Kapsambelis
- Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Every 69 seconds, someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Of the top 10 killers, it is the only disease for which there is no cure or treatment. For most people, there is nothing that they can do to fight back. But one family is doing all they can. The DeMoe family has the most devastating form of the disease that there is: early onset Alzheimer's, an inherited genetic mutation that causes the disease in 100 percent of cases, and has a 50 percent chance of being passed onto the next generation.
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A Cover-to-Cover Slug in the Gut, but Inspiring
- By Gillian on 04-16-17
By: Niki Kapsambelis
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Frameshift
- By: Robert J. Sawyer
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the story of Pierre Tradivel, a scientist, and his complex battle against deadly illness, and ex-Nazi war criminal still hiding in the U.S., a crooked insurance company, and a plot to make Pierre and his wife the victims of a bizarre genetic experiment. Frameshift is hard science fiction at its best, full of complications and neat surprises.
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Storyshift
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 05-24-14
By: Robert J. Sawyer
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Your Heart, My Hands
- An Immigrant's Remarkable Journey to Become One of America's Preeminent Cardiac Surgeons
- By: Arun K. Singh MD, John Hanc - contributor, Delos Cosgrove MD - foreword
- Narrated by: Shridhar Solanki
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Leaving a life marked by crippling setbacks and his father's doubt, in 1967 a 20-something doctor from India arrived in America with only five dollars and the desire to claim his American dream. Faced with an entirely new culture, racism, and the lasting effects of disabling childhood injuries, through hard work and perseverance he overcame all odds. Now having performed over 15,000 open-heart surgeries, more than nearly every surgeon in history, Dr. Singh reflects on his most memorable patients and his incredible personal life.
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Remarkable!
- By Stacey on 12-01-22
By: Arun K. Singh MD, and others
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Doctored
- The Disillusionment of an American Physician
- By: Sandeep Jauhar
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Hoping for the stability he needs to start a family, Sandeep Jauhar, an attending cardiologist, accepts a position at a massive teaching hospital on the outskirts of Queens. With a decade's worth of elite medical training behind him, he is eager to settle down and reap the rewards of countless sleepless nights. Instead, he is confronted with sobering truths. Doctors' morale is low and getting lower.
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Frank, inside perspective on the follies of unintended consequences in medical reform
- By JW on 02-25-18
By: Sandeep Jauhar
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The Soloist
- A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music
- By: Steve Lopez
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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When journalist Steve Lopez sees Nathaniel Ayers playing his heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles' skid row, he finds it impossible to walk away. More than 30 years ago, Ayers was a promising classical bass student at Juilliard - ambitious, charming, and also one of the few African-Americans there - until he gradually lost his ability to function, overcome by schizophrenia.
Over time, the two men form a bond and Lopez imagines that he might be able to change Ayers' life. The Soloist is a beautifully told story of devotion in the face of seemingly unbeatable challenges.
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Fantastic Audiobook
- By reggie p on 06-26-08
By: Steve Lopez
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When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated.
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Phenomenal book!
- By A. Potter on 01-16-16
By: Paul Kalanithi, and others
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Schuyler's Monster
- A Father's Journey with His Wordless Daughter
- By: Robert Rummel-Hudson
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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When Schuyler Rummel-Hudson was 18 months old, a question about her lack of speech by her pediatrician set in motion a journey that continues today. When she was diagnosed with bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria (an extremely rare neurological disorder), her parents were given a name for the monster that had been stalking them from doctor to doctor, and from despair to hope, and back again.
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Must-read for medical parents & those who ❤them
- By Kelly A. Wolske on 05-23-18
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Rise and Shine
- The Path to Life
- By: Simon Lewis
- Narrated by: Kelsey Grammer
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Crushed between a truck and a tree, Simon and his wife were both pronounced dead at the scene of a horrific car accident. Enduring a broken skull, jaw, arms, clavicle and pelvis, followed by a coma, Simon lives to tell his remarkable journey from tragedy to triumph.
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Amazing opportunities for healing!
- By Leah on 04-29-17
By: Simon Lewis
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Because I Come from a Crazy Family
- The Making of a Psychiatrist
- By: Edward M. Hallowell
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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When Edward M. Hallowell was 11, a voice out of nowhere told him he should become a psychiatrist. A mental health professional of the time would have called this psychosis. But young Edward (Ned) took it in stride, despite not quite knowing what "psychiatrist" meant. With a psychotic father, an alcoholic mother, an abusive stepfather, and two so-called learning disabilities of his own, Ned was accustomed to unpredictable behaviour from those around him and to a mind he felt he couldn't always control.
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Love and connection permeates through this book!
- By Steve Steinmetz on 06-29-18
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Zendegi
- By: Greg Egan
- Narrated by: Parisa Johnston
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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As tragedy strikes his multicultural family, Martin struggles to maintain his place in his adapted culture, and to provide for his child. Zendigi explores what it means to be human, and the lengths one will go to in order to provide for ones children. This emotional roller coaster explores a non-Western-European near future that both challenges ideas of global monoculture and emphasizes the humanity we all share.
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important topics, sad story
- By Kindle Customer on 04-06-24
By: Greg Egan
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A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman
- A Memoir
- By: Lindy Elkins-Tanton
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Deep in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, three times farther from the sun than the Earth is, orbits a massive asteroid called (16) Psyche. It is one of the largest objects in the belt, potentially containing the equivalent of the world’s total economy in metals, though they cannot be brought back to Earth. But (16) Psyche has the potential to unlock something even more valuable: the story of how planets form, and how our planet formed.
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Inspiring
- By SLL on 12-03-23
What listeners say about His Brother's Keeper
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Doggy Bird
- 03-17-13
Fascinating story, very good narration
I so much enjoyed THE BEAK OF THE FINCH, Jonathan Weiner's book on the studies done on the Galapagos Islands of Darwin's finches that I did not hesitate to try this examination of a brother's struggle to find a cure for Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS also commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. It is a subject of particular interest to me as my own mother died of ALS when she was only 52. The story examines not only the tragedy of neuro degenerative diseases, but the ethical struggles that accompany this brother's search for funding and a cure for his sibling's illness. There is also running through the book Weiner's own mother's discovery of and death from a neuro-degenerative disease.
The book was well narrated and held my interest, but didn't have the same impact of Weiner's first book, perhaps because the work in the book is not as successful or heroic as the Beak of the Finch. That said I did find the story worthwhile. particularly from the perspective of the ethical dilemmas presented and I do think it would be of interest even to those without a personal connection to these diseases. I would recommend the book to non-fiction readers who find the progress (and sometimes the setbacks) of medical science of interest as it is very well written and the reader does an excellent job.
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Overall
- Barbara
- 02-02-10
Well done portrayal of a family in crisis
A well written book about a family racing for a treatment for a family member diagnosed with ALS.
It is a sad and at time disturbing portrayal of a brother trying to find a way to use "gene" therapy and/or stem cell therapy to cure his dying brother, while struggling with the temptation to develope a business with these therapies. The book examines the patient,family, friends; their interactions, support and always,their hope. Mr. Bevine is an excellent narrator making the book all the better.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Tammy Clardy
- 05-20-10
very good for understanding ALS
Having a close friend with ALS and having had 3 other friends die from it in the past, I enjoyed the medical explanations and factual content of this book along with the story. It was very believable and well written. I hope some day a cure is found
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2 people found this helpful