Intoxicated by My Illness: And Other Writings on Life and Death is a 1992 book by American literary critic Anatole Broyard. Published after Broyard's death from prostate cancer in 1990, the memoir is a collection of six essays; half of them were written over the course of his career, while the other half were written post-diagnosis, in the last 14 months of his life.Alpert 1992Goodrich 1992 The book includes "What the Cystoscope Said", a 1954 short story about his father's own terminal illness, and The Patient Examines the Doctor, an original essay where Broyard discusses the doctor–patient relationship and advocates for compassion and humanity towards the patient, saying, "One who is not only a talented physician, but a bit of a metaphysician [...] able to go beyond science into the person [to] imagine the aloneness of the critically ill [...] I want him to be my Virgil, leading me through my purgatory or inferno, pointing out the sights as we go [...] To get to my body, my doctor has to get to my character. He has to go through my soul."Rolland 1996, p. 150 Broyard's writings on illness are considered foundational texts in medical humanities and narrative medicine.Wohlmann 2024, p. 105
Neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote the book's foreword, while Broyard's wife Alexandra wrote the epilogue.Kennedy 1992
References Notes
Sources
Commentary and reviews
External links 1989 New York Times essay by Broyard: "ABOUT MEN; Intoxicated by My Illness"