Matilda's Triumph: A Memoir

by Richard Moss

Overview

Dr. Richard Moss of Jasper, Indiana, writes of his childhood in the Bronx, his mother's struggles raising five boys alone, Richard's graduation from medical school, pro bono work in several countries, and finally setting up a traditional medical practice in Indiana. He writes of his struggles dealing with his mother's stroke and his inability to save her. Beautifully written with flashbacks, medical research, and his present day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781880292860
Publisher:	LangMarc Publishing
Publication date:	12/10/2013
Pages:	390
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

Editorial Reviews

2023-11-23
A medical doctor explores his mother’s life and mystifying death in this memoir of grief and remembrance.

Moss’ book begins on an otherwise typical September day in 1998, when his mother suddenly displayed the classic signs of a stroke—slurred speech, drooping facial muscles, and strange mannerisms. Despite the Indiana physician’s professional expertise, it took him a moment to realize what had happened. After a trip to the hospital, he was equally nonplussed by the casual attitude of her caretakers toward her condition, as he knew his mother “had few risk factors.” In this book, he blends a medical case study with a memoir as he explores the causes of his mother’s stroke in vignettes that celebrate her life and reflect on his own grieving process. As an otolaryngologist (better known as an ENT) with a private practice who’s authored multiple peer-reviewed articles, Moss approaches his story as a case study, piecing together modern medical research to explore the origins, and potential cures, of his mother’s stroke. Backed by a scholarly bibliography, he gives lay readers a rare glimpse into the mind of a medical practitioner as he draws his diagnosis from disparate sources. As engaging as the book’s medical mystery is, its greatest strength lies in Moss’ grappling with questions that science can’t answer. The devout Jewish author explores universal questions related to belief in a loving God in a world that’s full of pain. In one particularly poignant passage, the book touches upon the Mourner’s Kaddish, a prayer that paradoxically centers on praising the deity without ever mentioning the deceased, “as if to emphasize that even under the greatest duress, the most painful loss, our devotion to God [is] not diminished.” In periodic vignettes, the author also presents a chronicle of his mother’s life and the sacrifices she made for her children: “I didn’t realize how far inside myself it all went,” Moss writes in the prologue, “how deeply my mother had reached.”

A touching work that celebrates a life and mourns its loss.

Kirkus Reviews