Book Description

From the author of In the Shadow of Memory, a memoir of living with brain damage that won the 2004 PEN Center USA Literary Award and was a finalist for the 2003 Barnes & Noble Discover Award, comes a gripping novel about the battleground of human medical researcha'told from the patienta's point of view.At 41, Sam Kiehl was a successful political consultant, a long-distance runner and rock climber, the single father of a grown son, and lover of a popular newspaper columnist. Then he contracted a virus that targeted his brain and left him totally disabled. With few treatment options available and his health continuing to worsen, Sam seizes upon the chance to offer himself as a subject in the clinical field trial of a new drug, Zomalovir. He becomes a?Patient 002a? and joins a group of patients from all walks of life who are similarly afflicted and desperate. What happens to Sam, to the young woman named Tracy Marsh with whom he is partnered, and to the others in his group, provides a sometimes shocking, sometimes humorous, always dramatic picture of human medical research, a world seldom seen. As the research subjects responda'or fail to responda'to their experimental treatment, as participating doctors and nurses observe, and as Physicians for Ethical Research, the pharmaceutical company that developed the drug and operates the study, deals with harsh truths about the costs and risks of conducting research, Patient 002 becomes a riveting tale of choices made and consequences faced at the center of the illness experience.Patient 002 is also a love story, as Sam discovers passion and romance in an unexpected place. Ita's also a novel of friendships forged in extreme circumstances and of the human capacity for survival in the face of overwhelming obstacles. A character in the novel warns, a?Beware of hopefulness.a? Yet Patient 002, especially when the patients take matters into their own hands in surprising ways, is a novel of hope, healing, and astonishing actions.