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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.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
February 21, 2023 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593675601
- File size: 346348 KB
- Duration: 12:01:33
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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December 5, 2022
Cullen’s winning historical (after The Sisters of Summit Avenue) draws on the life of Dorothy Hortsmann, a doctor whose contribution to the development of the polio vaccine helped eradicate the disease. In 1940, Dorothy is rejected from Vanderbilt’s residency program because she’s a woman. Later, the chief of medicine offers the same spot to a “D.M. Hortsmann” and is surprised when Dorothy shows up. (“She won’t last,” is his verdict.) A clinical epidemiologist, and often the only female doctor among esteemed scientists such as Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, Dorothy dedicates her life to confirming her hypothesis (rejected at the time by the scientific community) that polio travels through the blood to the nervous system, and along the way she becomes a Yale fellow and professor, and travels extensively to polio outbreaks. She falls madly in love with heroic Arne Holm, who saved 7,000 Danish Jews from the Nazis, but, as Cullen writes, “crushing a disease” would always be her first love. Dorothy is humble and underfunded, and her research and findings are often either overlooked or duplicated by men who take the credit—until her discovery opens the door for the vaccine. Cullen’s portrait of the steadfast, self-sacrificing Dorothy hits home and is made more stirring by the vivid depictions of young polio patients. This author is writing at the top of her game. Agent: Margaret Sutherland Brown, Folio Literary. -
Hillary Huber is compelling in Cullen's fictionalized story of Dr. Dorothy Horstmann, a real-life scientist who made an enormous contribution to the discovery of the polio vaccine. Like so many women in history, Horstmann was ignored while Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin received all the recognition even though her work was equally critical. Huber's timing and subtle tones reveal Horstmann's character, including her insecurities--her awkward height, her struggle to be taken seriously, and her very human response to paralyzed patients as people, not statistics, which was rare in doctors in those days. Huber adopts a light accent and almost purrs for Arne Holm, Horstmann's invented Danish lover. It's crushing when their romance falls apart, mostly because a female scientist couldn't balance it all. A.B. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine -
June 10, 2024
Cullen's (The Sisters of Summit Avenue) latest historical novel recounts the long search for a polio vaccine during the 1940s and 1950s. The titular woman is based on the real-life Dr. Dorothy Horstmann, a scientist whose revolutionary work made way for the polio vaccine. Horstmann struggles to get jobs, recognition, and funding in what was seen as a man's realm. As doctors Sabin and Salk compete in their labs to find a cure, and others dare to administer untested vaccines to humans, Horstmann discovers how polio travels through the blood. Though she longs for a "normal" life with her husband and children, her passion for her work propels her forward. Cullen researched the medical, clinical, and ethical aspects of creating the polio vaccine, as well as the social impacts that polio had. Hillary Huber narrates with emotion, providing a wide variety of voices. She poignantly captures the fear and concern of parents for their children and the suffering of those who contracted polio before the vaccine. VERDICT An engrossing and inspiring novel about the life of a brilliant scientific pioneer. Those interested in midcentury medical accomplishments will be captivated.--Joanna M. Burkhardt
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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