“Broke is a powerful read, one full of surprising details, that provides a fascinating portrayal of medical patients and their relationship with poverty.Stein lifts up his patients’ voices so we can understand just what they have experienced, and his own voice is gentle, reflective, and empathetic. This is book every doctor and patient should read."
"In these pithy essays, Michael Stein and Sandro Galea convincingly show that American health depends less on medical care than on the state of our jobs, families, social networks, and environment. Recommended for anyone with an interest in public health."
“Stein has come to understand the emotions that patients experience when illness descends, the feeling that the body has betrayed them, the terror of the unknown, the loss of a legion of familiar comforts, and the loneliness of being kidnapped into the land of the ill.” -The New York Times
'THE ADDICT' is more than a narrative about the forward and backward steps that lead from addiction to recovery. It's a useful, sensible, and often inspiring guide to how the medical profession does - and should - treat the sick, and the sick at heart." -Francine Prose, The Oprah Magazine
"Brilliant, lyrical, and daring." -Annie Dillard
"With resonant intelligence and the generous irony of Walker Percy or Milan Kundera, this local story about minor medical events enlarges, by virtue of the author's gift, to embrace and illuminate the perils, the abandonments, the dark joys, and the giddy celebrations of being human." -New England Journal of Medicine
"He has drawn an unforgettable picture of the feistiness and resilience of someone who is in the throes of losing who she is. With deft pacing and skillful variations in tone, that it leaves you walking through your own memories of child-parent interactions is testimony to its quiet power." -The Phoenix
