Breathless: An Asthma Journal

Rating:
Summary: Not a book about asthma as a physical ailment
Review: I loved Desalvo's Crazy in the Kitchen and was very eager to read this book, as both my sons have asthma. However, I found this read extremely irritating. Of course, one can only write from one's own perspective, but Desalvo's perspective on asthma is so very different than that of so many asthma sufferers, young children. She seems overly involved in her own illness, and fascinated by her own symptoms, which do not seem terribly severe to me. Mainly, however, I was annoyed by her view of asthma as a illness caused by emotional trauma---a view that has long been discredited. Certainly it's a more interesting topic to write about than it would be to attribute asthma to traditional medical causes, and it allows her to explore asthma in literature, but it also reminds me of those bashing "refrigerator mothers" for autism. I think her asthma could be quite easily explained in part by living near NYC and driving through polluted air each day, and working in a closed building near smokers.

I think this book should be seen as a survey of asthmatics in literature, and not in any way as a depiction and explanation of asthma as a disease.