Author: Lynn Cullen
Expected Publication: February 21, 2023
Format: Kindle, 400 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
First Sentence: Arlene would never get over the empty swimming pools.
Blurb: She gave up everything— and changed the world.
A riveting novel based on the true story of the woman who stopped a pandemic, from the bestselling author of Mrs. Poe.
In 1940s and ’50s America, polio is as dreaded as the atomic bomb. No one’s life is untouched by this disease that kills or paralyzes its victims, particularly children. Outbreaks of the virus across the country regularly put American cities in lockdown. Some of the world’s best minds are engaged in the race to find a vaccine. The man who succeeds will be a god.
But Dorothy Horstmann is not focused on beating her colleagues to the vaccine. She just wants the world to have a cure. Applying the same determination that lifted her from a humble background as the daughter of immigrants, to becoming a doctor –often the only woman in the room--she hunts down the monster where it lurks: in the blood.
This discovery of hers, and an error by a competitor, catapults her closest colleague to a lead in the race. When his chance to win comes on a worldwide scale, she is asked to sink or validate his vaccine—and to decide what is forgivable, and how much should be sacrificed, in pursuit of the cure. (GoodReads)
My Opinion: Knowing nothing about Dorothy Horstman, I had to begin with a quick Google search and background information. Found yet another female scientist, epidemiologist, virologist, clinician, pediatrician, and educator who somehow never made it to the forefront with a name on a plaque or recognition in a high school history book. Yet, that suited her just as fine. Dr. Horstman wanted a cure, not the accolades, though the Nobel Prize would have been nice since she did make the pivotal discovery regarding how the polio virus entered the body.
‘The Woman with the Cure’ is a fictionalized account of her life from the day she walked into Vanderbilt with determination to find a cure, or preventative, for polio. Coinciding with history, the reader begins to visualize the long trek through the 1940s, through trial and error, until the late 1950s, when the vaccine led the way for millions.
This book was too slow-paced for my liking. I understand how Lynn Cullen was trying to show how long the road to discovery was, but for every step forward in science, there were two steps back in the drama of Horstman’s “should I give it all up for a man” subplot. As shown through the interaction between Sabin and his wife Silvia, a man never has to make this decision, and I wished half the book could have been eliminated or rewritten; so it didn’t come across as “oh, poor me” when there was so much more to Dr. Dorothy Horstman.
Blurb: She gave up everything— and changed the world.
A riveting novel based on the true story of the woman who stopped a pandemic, from the bestselling author of Mrs. Poe.
In 1940s and ’50s America, polio is as dreaded as the atomic bomb. No one’s life is untouched by this disease that kills or paralyzes its victims, particularly children. Outbreaks of the virus across the country regularly put American cities in lockdown. Some of the world’s best minds are engaged in the race to find a vaccine. The man who succeeds will be a god.
But Dorothy Horstmann is not focused on beating her colleagues to the vaccine. She just wants the world to have a cure. Applying the same determination that lifted her from a humble background as the daughter of immigrants, to becoming a doctor –often the only woman in the room--she hunts down the monster where it lurks: in the blood.
This discovery of hers, and an error by a competitor, catapults her closest colleague to a lead in the race. When his chance to win comes on a worldwide scale, she is asked to sink or validate his vaccine—and to decide what is forgivable, and how much should be sacrificed, in pursuit of the cure. (GoodReads)
My Opinion: Knowing nothing about Dorothy Horstman, I had to begin with a quick Google search and background information. Found yet another female scientist, epidemiologist, virologist, clinician, pediatrician, and educator who somehow never made it to the forefront with a name on a plaque or recognition in a high school history book. Yet, that suited her just as fine. Dr. Horstman wanted a cure, not the accolades, though the Nobel Prize would have been nice since she did make the pivotal discovery regarding how the polio virus entered the body.
‘The Woman with the Cure’ is a fictionalized account of her life from the day she walked into Vanderbilt with determination to find a cure, or preventative, for polio. Coinciding with history, the reader begins to visualize the long trek through the 1940s, through trial and error, until the late 1950s, when the vaccine led the way for millions.
This book was too slow-paced for my liking. I understand how Lynn Cullen was trying to show how long the road to discovery was, but for every step forward in science, there were two steps back in the drama of Horstman’s “should I give it all up for a man” subplot. As shown through the interaction between Sabin and his wife Silvia, a man never has to make this decision, and I wished half the book could have been eliminated or rewritten; so it didn’t come across as “oh, poor me” when there was so much more to Dr. Dorothy Horstman.
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