Abraham Nussbaum

Physician, Teacher, Writer


Beat the Reaper, Josh Bazell

Mafioso and medicine? There is an analogy between the two initiations, to be sure, but in Bazell’s page-turner, it’s a crass one. Medical knowledge is just one more skill a killer acquires. In the end, he comes to hate medicine– “The endless suffering and death of patients whose lives I was supposed to fix but couldn’t, either because no one could or because I just wasn’t good enough.”– and the reader is grateful he leaves the practice. Super bro-ey.