Flesh and Blood: A History of My Family in Seven Sicknesses

(Paperback)

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Powerful and affecting Mail on Sunday

Flesh and Blood is living drama extracted like buried treasure from old documents and the hand-me-down stories of his relatives. I couldn't put it downJenny Agutter

'Intelligently structured and eloquently written, McGanns book is a powerful homage to his family and Irish ancestry, to modern medicine and the welfare state. Packed with lively anecdotes and insights on social history, Flesh and Blood is a humble human story with a majestic theme'Times Literary Supplement.

'Drama and reality repeatedly intersect in unexpected ways in this powerful and revealing memoir' Mail on Sunday

'Eloquent in its metaphors, this book is about memory, how it shapes us, and what we choose to pass on' Irish Times

'With its mix of readable science and passionate sensibility, Flesh and Blood is essentially an attempt to heal the old rift between science and art' Radio Times

His family survived famine-ravaged Ireland in the 1850s.

His ancestors settled in poverty-rife Victorian Liverpool, working to survive and thrive.

Some of them became soldiers serving on the Western Front.

One would bethe last man to step off the SS Titanic as it sank beneath the icy waves. He would testify at the inquest.

This is their story.

StephenMcGann isDoctor Turner in the BBC hit-drama series Call theMidwife.

Flesh and Bloodis the story of the McGann family as told through seven sicknesses diseases, wounds or ailments that have afflicted Stephens relatives over the last century and a half, and which have helped mould him into what he now perceives himself to be. Its the story of how health, or the lack of it, fuels our collective will and informs our personal narrative. Health is the motivational antagonist in the drama of our life story - circumscribing the extent of our actions, the quality of our character and the breadth of our ambition. Our maladies are the scribes that write the restless and mutating genome of our self-identity.

Flesh and Blood combines McGanns passion for genealogy with an academic interest in the social dimensions of medicine and fuses these with a lifelong exploration of drama as a way to understand what motivates human beings to do the things they do. He looks back at scenes from his own life that were moulded by medical malady, and traces the crooked roots of each affliction through the lives of his ancestors, whose grim maladies punctuate the public documents or military records of hisfamily tree. In this way he asks a simple, searching question: how have these maladies helped to shape the story of the person he is today

Reviews

Drama and reality repeatedly intersect in unexpected ways in this powerful and revealing memoir -- Mail on Sunday
With its mix of readable science and passionate sensibility,Flesh and Bloodis essentially an attempt to heal the old rift between science and art -- Radio Times
It is an artful, honest book, marked by the authors clear-eyed examination of how his familys lives were entwined with historys often terrible markers -- New Statesman
Each event becomes real, in one breath fascinating with medical detail, in the next an emotional contraction. Elegant in its metaphors, this book is about memory, how it shapes us, and what we choose to pass on. If all that remains of us is the story we tell, then McGanns narrative is an insightful, beautiful legacy -- The Irish Times
Flesh and Blood is living drama extracted like buried treasure from old documents and the hand-me-down stories of his relatives. I couldn't put it down -- Jenny Agutter

Author Bio

Stephen McGann is an English actor, one of a family of acting brothers including Joe, Paul and Mark. He began his professional career in 1982, starring in the West End musical Yakety Yak. He has since worked extensively in British theatre and on screen. He has portrayed Doctor Turner since the very first episode of the series. He is married to the writer Heidi Thomas.