Review by Booklist Review
The tales of trauma, physical and emotional, that Gonzales (Deep Survival, 2003) chronicles represent extreme cases of survival. Not all these stories have happy endings. Survival is a tough business, and the aftermath is no picnic. Gonzales introduces readers to people who are mauled and disfigured by wild animals (a grizzly bear, crocodile, and shark). Human assailants prove to be equally vicious. Incidents of domestic violence and a battered wife are reported. The injuries (from a bomb blast) to a Marine in Iraq are detailed. A man recalls witnessing horrific deeds by the Nazis before his escape from a concentration camp. A mother is devastated when her five-year-old daughter dies from a streptococcal infection. Gonzales discerns patterns of how people adapt to catastrophe. He also offers a dozen suggestions for reintegration into a normal life, such as keep moving forward, stay busy, and help others. Information and research from the fields of psychology and neuroscience prop up his suppositions. In a truly dangerous world, most of the individuals profiled in this book exemplify hope in action.--Miksanek, Tony Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Gonzales (Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why), a National Magazine Award-winning journalist, tackles a difficult narrative: the near-deadly encounter and the life that must be lived afterward. The people whose stories he presents have endured trials ranging from entrapment in the jaws of a ferocious crocodile to the threat from an abusive husband. Gonzales follows these traumas into their aftermath, where the mind continues, often torturously, to repeat the incident. Gonzales, trying in part to identify common factors of postsurvival success, finds that often it is one's ability to act (go back to school, learn to play golf, motorcycle cross-country), but it is also, he suggests, the brain's wiring that makes it easier for some than for others to adapt. As in Deep Survival, Gonzales intersperses journalistic case studies with information about the brain and its responses to trauma. Such juxtapositions at times seem contrived and at odds with the emotionally charged experiences the author aims to convey. In fact, what emerges from all of the stories is that surviving survival cannot be reduced to a science or even a narrative. But for this reason the book will likely be useful for those with resonating experiences: the cases provide multidisciplinary evidence that nobody struggles in isolation. Agent: Gail Hochman. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Gonzales (Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why) here addresses the nature and resolution of traumatic stress. Chapters contain case studies, drawn from books, interviews, and other written documents, of persons who have faced horrific conditions ranging from animal attacks to military combat and domestic violence. Using these narratives to explore how such shocks and assaults affect the human psyche, Gonzales focuses on resilience, acknowledging that trauma changes people forever but offering specific strategies for handling such stresses and avoiding self-pity, including unorthodox suggestions like sports, knitting, and travel as well as other tools for psychological adaptation (excluding drug therapy) that may enhance the healing process. VERDICT Gonzales has scripted a compelling and readable guide to the psychology of individual crisis management for the general reader. Though victims of severe PTSD will obviously need professional help, this book provides useful tools for dealing with the misfortune that creeps into many people's lives. This is a timely, realistic, and accessible self-help book on the potential of growth from suffering. Recommended.-Antoinette Brinkman, Evansville, IN (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
How can the world smite thee? Let us count the ways... Having limned the odds and wherefores of surviving various challenges in Deep Survival (2003) and Everyday Survival (2008), Gonzales (Lucy, 2010, etc.) looks deeply into the mental processes that enable us to cope with the trauma that often sets in during and after a challenge to our survival. Take, for instance, the prospect of falling overboard and floating in the deep ocean for five days before rescue, as happened to one woman Gonzales profiled in the first book. Though she was rescued, that was not the end of the story in real life; instead, for years, she has had to relive "the pain of thirst, the terror, the physical brutality of the sea," while her brain has followed its well-known assumption that what happened in the past will happen in the future, no matter how rare the chances of being shipwrecked. Here Gonzales narrates plenty of grim and gruesome tales, not all of them elective; his survivors are those who have suffered war and terrorism as well as falls off mountains and into choppy surf. The best parts are not those harrowing stories, though, but instead the author's contemplative explanations of the science behind, for instance, how the amygdala works, a blend of inheritance and hard-won education. Pity us poor primates and our amygdalae, for, as he writes, "[w]hen bad things happen, this system can be the source of much sorrow." One manifestation is the "rage circuit," which so often afflicts soldiers returning from combat. Those who adapt well to the post-traumatic stress share points in common. One characteristic of success, writes Gonzales, is the ability to step outside oneself to help others, which is "one of the most therapeutic steps you can take." Survivors of traumatic events often do not recover without help from others, and Gonzales' excellent book is an education for those wishing to be of use in a stressful, often frightening world.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
