Product Description

How does it feel to hold someone's life in your hands? What is it like to cut into someone else's body? How do you tell a beautiful young man who seems perfectly fit that he has only a few days left to live? What happens when, on a quiet ward late at night, a patient you've grown close to lifts the corner of his blankets and invites you into his bed? What is it like to stand by, powerless, while someone dies because of the incompetence of your seniors? In this startling and honest book, female surgeon Gabriel Weston allows light to fall on the questions we have all wanted to ask about surgery. As well as an experienced surgeon, she is a writer of arresting talent: her compassionate and insightful account achieves what many fear the surgical profession itself fails to do, combining a fierce sense of human dignity with the professional necessity for detachment. Direct Red is also unusual in telling the truth about what it is like to be a woman competing in a world dominated by Alpha males, in the big-city hospitals of the twenty-first century. She tells us what it is like to 'just go home and watch TV after acts that in a different setting could as easily point to the asylum'. This is a wise and humane book whose truths about human nature in extremis will stay with you.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6377 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Review
Gabriel Weston's exactitude of expression is rare and uncanny, the more so for the sense one gets that this is a world in which the moral value of truthfulness is ambiguous. Her description of the struggle to remain individual and hence moral is her real achievement. This, to me, is what female writing has to do, and she does it with style and humour and beauty. --Rachel Cusk

Perceptive and beautifully written. An original voice. --Dr James Le Fanu

Review
Perceptive and beautifully written. An original voice.

Review
'A front-line report from often alien territory. I hope the judges of the Samuel Johnson Prize are taking note'

Customer Reviews

Weston Medicine
Gabriel Weston came to medicine late by British standards, first doing a literature degree, and then, after going through medical school as a mature student, training as an Ear, Nose and Throat surgeon; she now works part-time and has written a book about her medical experiences, entitled "Direct Red". The origin of the title is revealed in the first chapter, in which the author explains that, when she's feeling ill or pressurized in the operating theatre, she calms herself by recounting the names of histological stains, one of them being called Direct Red.

Books written by doctors about the profession tend to be memoirs. The vogue is to write a collection of anecdotes designed to amuse, and they tend to sell quite well. "Direct Red" is only part-memoir, as stated in the author's note: "This book is not literally true. While its characters owe something to patients and doctors I have known, none of these characters is real. Similarly, events I describe are a mixture of things that have happened and things that might have happened."

Gabriel Weston writes in simple, vivid prose, proving herself a first-rate stylist. To begin with, I was reminded of a book that came out a few years ago by an American ER doctor, Frank Huyler, entitled "The Blood of Strangers". "Direct Red" contains stories about the author/narrator fancying a male patient, assisting in cosmetic surgery, being patronized by male and female colleagues, encountering a young man who died of bowel cancer, a young boy who died of a brain tumour and a man seeking a sex change. Those looking for A&E anecdotes about foreign objects up rectums won't find any. This is a more mature, reflective work.

My only criticism is that the experiences didn't feel as fully formed/imagined as they might have been; I developed the impression the author was holding back from creating something more engaging on an emotional level. But I read the book quickly, and looked forward to each new chapter, and that is also a compliment to her skill as a writer.

Surgical Passion
This book is simply brilliant. As a doctor, I am usually very reluctant to spend any spare time doing anything associated with my day job. However, I could not resist reading Direct Read. Insightful, honest, and reflective, you journey through an extraordinary world experienced by an unusually womanly female surgeon. Beautifully and cleverly written it also has the quality of accessibility. Any technical surgical details blend seamlessly with the story telling and describe the reality with imagination and accuracy. However, the dramatic events that unfold in each short storey are only one aspect of this book. Weston's passion and humanity stand out and distinguishes Direct Red from anything else written in this genre. It is impossible to put down. I have little doubt that you will read it in one sitting and feel sorry that it is over so quickly. A second read is essential. I cannot wait for more from this new and talented author.

Scenes from the theatre of life
Gabriel Weston gives a stunning insight into the previously unseen world of the operating theatre. She writes with truthfulness, honesty, wit and compassion; there isn't a word wasted. What a wise woman - she describes the very real struggle of a woman in a traditional man's world - her strength and dignity shine through. A superb read, one that highlights the fragility of life - and the courage of those who choose to devote themselves to healing.