MomReviews

The Cure for Modern Life was not an easy book for me to read. I had read and enjoyed author Lisa Tucker’s book Once Upon A Day, and reviewed it for MotherTalk, so I was looking forward to reading this book as well when MotherTalk asked for volunteers. The main character is Matthew Connelly, an executive at a giant pharmaceutical company called Astor-Denning. He has spent years getting a new wonder drug into the market, but his tactics bring ethics into question. The night before he is headed to Japan to work on correcting mis-information about the product, called Galvenar, he is walking through Manhattan when he finds in his path a frantic ten year old boy yelling that he needs help for his sick sister.

Despite his self-centered nature, Matthew agrees to help Danny and his sister, and their drug-addicted mother who was hiding. Three year old Isabelle is sick and vomiting, so Matthew takes the three of them back to his posh apartment. The next morning, as he is leaving to catch his plane, Matthew agrees to let Danny stay in the apartment until Isabelle wakes up, their mother having left. This is uncharacteristically altruistic of Matthew.

Other characters in the story are Matthew’s ex-girlfriend Amelia, who works for an industry watchdog and is threatening to expose medical truths about the Galvenar drug. Amelia is also dating Matthew’s best friend Ben, after Matthew played matchmaker. What I found difficult was keeping track of what was happening with the pharmaceutical part of the plot, the problems with the drug and who had said what to whom about it. Although not completely technical, there were passages that I just ended up skimming through because I didn’t quite get what was happening.

What I enjoyed most about the book was the relationship that developed between Matthew, Danny and Isabelle. It was like watching a large slab of ice slowly melting, as Matthew found himself charmed by Isabelle’s sweetness and touched by Danny’s tender care of his sister. Danny has basically raised himself while his mother dissolved into a drug haze, and although he would have every reason to be untrustworthy, he isn’t. I kept waiting for the chapter where Matthew comes home and finds his apartment stripped of everything valuable, but fortunately that didn’t happen.

I’ve got a great bunch of links to pass along, this one is for author Lisa Tucker’s website, a Publisher’s Weekly review of the book, the schedule for the book tour, and Lisa Tucker’s Amazon.com page. If you don’t mind reading the technical parts of this story, you’ll enjoy the characters in this book, and the way that so many different aspects of Modern Life are woven together. To answer the question “what is the Cure for Modern Life?”, the book seems to be suggesting that the cure is having people to love.

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