This review was posted with the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America on 1/12/01

I would like to recommend a new book by a colleague of mine, Marilyn Gibson,
entitled "Hanging by a String" (Writers Club Press, 2000; ISBN
0-595-14494-2)). This many-faceted book details the author's tumultuous life
with lupus, from her first medical confirmation of the disease as a teenager
through the several times that, were it not for fine doctors and her own
spiritual strength and determination to live, the disease "should" have
claimed her.

The author makes bluntly clear at the beginning of the book that she does
not believe health and disease to be mere circumstances of luck or genes,
and is never timid or evasive about her belief in spiritual and metaphysical
origins, and thus in spiritual and metaphysical solutions. Lest there be any
doubt in the reader's mind as to where the pages will be heading, the author
makes her premise starkly clear in the first two sentences of the
Introduction : "I believe that we choose what we need throughout life to
address lack in our souls. This includes disease."

These proclamations prepare the reader for the often unexpected detours in a
book that, on its surface, is simply a history of one person's fight against
a devastating and incurable disease. While few people today would question
the profound effect of state-of-mind in one's physical health, many readers
will disagree with the extent to which the author explains the non-medical
causes, cures, and indeed the very "reasons" for disease. She explores
Buddhism and other metaphysical disciplines along with the Christianity with
which she was raised; without pre-judgment, every insight which is loving
and beneficial is welcomed and assimilated. Not only her present life is
scrutinized for clues to her disease, but also those of her parents and
grandparents, and even of her own, previous lives.

Some readers may be inclined to categorically dismiss such non-empirical
observations as previous incarnations and metaphysical explanations for
disease ; yet Gibson expresses her beliefs directly and clearly, without
evasiveness and without requiring the reader to concur. She extols the
Western medical tradition which repeatedly saved her life, while questioning
whether it in itself may on another level contribute to disease ; these
opinions she expresses not in a lack of gratitude of Western medicine, but
rather in an effort to improve it. Not coincidentally, in recounting several
rhapsodic images dancing through her mind when near death and under
debilitating drugs, the Disease symbolically takes on the guise of a demon,
not merely a biological horror.

Even such a seemingly peripheral event as the manner in which she finds an
apartment to share in New York City, is given an explanation which may seem
mystical to some. I don't doubt her story; yet even if I did, the
straight-forward manner in which it is recounted allows even the most ardent
skeptic to accept it as her own history of herself, and to move forward from
there

Since the author is a fine violinist, along the way one gets a sense of the
enormous love and passion that are prerequisites for any such monumental
pursuit, all of which ultimately ties in to her central theme. She expresses
beautifully the concept that for her to play the violin is as necessary as
for her to breathe. Indeed, one gets a sense that the violin was part of her
life-long cure. "My violin ... was like a beautiful lover. I knew every inch
of its dark brown varnish and sensual curves as well as I knew my own body.
The sides reminded me of an Italian painting, or an ancient map, with
snaking lines of age pointing to random destinations."

Perhaps the parts of the book which most affected me were the occasional
unexpected phrases which succinctly convey how fortunate we, blessed with
life and sharing this wonderland we call Earth, are. For example, one such
jolting phrase comes when she is in the mountains of Aspen, too ill to truly
partake of the miraculous splendor about her : "I felt like an alien who had
beamed down into paradise."

Equally jarring are the author's hospital recollections when near death,
before a kidney transplant turned her life around : "In this distorted
world, I lurked in the shadows. Here in the murky recesses of my new life
underwater, everyone spoke without sound or meaning. The surface, where
healthy people lived, was a place where my admission pass had just run out."

As someone who is the same age as the author, no book has better reminded me
of our incomprehensible fortune of being alive on this Earth, and of the
tragedy that any of us might squander it.

Tom Suarez