Working Stiff

Very interesting. But pretty gruesome in the descriptions so if you are sensitive to blood and trauma, this is not the book for you.
Learned some about anatomy, and that in real life, the work of the medical examiner takes a long time.
She had the misfortune of working in New York City through the 9/11 and a plane crash within the same month.
It's written as a sequence of anecdotes, there isn't a flow to the stories.
It's more like a collection of related short stories rather than a novel.
It's non-fiction of course, I made the comparison to give a sense of what reading it is like.
But with the subject matter, that works pretty well.

★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader as part of a quick takes post to catch up–emphasizing pithiness, not thoroughness.
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I really don't know what to say about this account of a forensic pathologist's training in NYC. Read it, listen to it, whatever. It's fascinating. It's a good reminder/way to learn that not all of forensic pathology is what you see on police procedurals (and even then...wow, fictionalized).

Her retelling of the reasons she left her surgical residency—and the fact that she's not the exception to the rule (beyond having the good sense to leave when so many don't), is one more reminder that we desperately need to overhaul medical training in this country.

But that's not what the book is about—it's about the day-to-day grind, the countless ways pathologists find evidence about what kills us, the hard job of getting answers for the bereaved, and yeah—there's the criminal justice side to it. I'm a little squeamish when it comes to real-life medical “stuff”, I'll watch a Tarantino marathon and not blink and the bucks of blood (well, maybe the dance scene in Reservoir Dogs some days), but I can't last 15 minutes in a medical documentary without my toes literally curling. There were moments listening to this that made me wonder—but there weren't many, and they passed quickly. If you're like me, stick with it.

I was all set to say this is a good book and well worth your time, and then we got to the penultimate chapter. Melinek wisely organized her story by topic, not chronology. Largely due to this chapter (I'd guess), because you want it at the end so it doesn't dwarf the rest. She started her residency a few weeks before September 11, 2001. I'm not even going to try to describe it. The whole book could've been written about this and the immediate aftermath.

As much as I enjoyed(?) the subject (don't judge me!), it just felt a bit repetitive after a while. For such a short book, it felt long.

The book covers a few years at the start of the doctor's career as a medical examiner but there's so much dialogue between her and colleagues I wonder if she wrote it all down at the time or if its just been made up to simulate what would have been discussed. It just felt a bit off.

Definitely worth a read, just perhaps written in a bit of an odd way for a nonfiction/memoir.