The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne FadimanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Wow. This is a really affecting, even horrific tale of Hmong refugees trying to deal with their daughter's epilepsy across a cultural and language divide. Henry Ford said, "If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own." I was also reminded of that value in reading How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer: "The qualities he Valued Were Curiosity, Sociability, kindness, fellow-feeling, adaptability, intelligent reflection, the ability to see things from another's point of View, and 'goodwill'..." This is an epic tragedy and cautionary tale of when that ability is absent on both sides. Personally involved in the investigation the author tells the story well here although I feel the parts about the epic travails of the Hmong from Laos to (post-Vietnam War) America would be better told in the beginning, chronologically.
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