Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine
AuthorJames Maskalyk
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish
SubjectsEmergency medicine
Humanitarian Aid
GenreAutobiography
PublisherDoubleday Canada
Pages272
ISBN9780385665988

Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine is an autobiographical book by Canadian doctor James Maskalyk about his work and reflections on working in emergency departments in St Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Canada, and Black Lion Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,[1] as well as work in Cambodia and Bolivia.[2]

Life on the Ground Floor was released on 11 April 2017 as a follow-up to Maskalyk's first book, Six Months in Sudan.[3]

Plot summary

The book is broken into 26 chapters, which follow the alphabet from A to Z, with each chapter consisting of a short essay.[4] The stories are mostly set in Toronto or Addis Ababa and each offer unusual perspectives of working in hospital emergency departments.[4]

Critical reception

While reviewing the book, Heather Mallick of the Toronto Star described Maskalyk as "A master of the medical memoir."[4]

André Picard praised Maskalyk for his humility and for avoiding the common pitfalls made by Western observers of low-income countries: "the strength of the book is that it captures the viscera, real and symbolic, of the ER – its sights, sounds, smells, pulse – without romanticizing the work."[1]

The book was one of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's top ten non-fiction books of the year in 2017,[5] and the Globe and Mail's top 100 books of 2017.[6]

The memoir was a Globe and Mail best book of 2017,[7] made the National Post's Best Books of 2017,[8] and was a Chatelaine best book of 2017.[9]

Awards

The book won the 2017 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction award.[10][11][12] Accordingly to the judging panel, Maskalyk: "reveals compelling universal truths about the power, and limits, of medicine — 'life caring for itself,' as he defines it — the strength of human will, and the fragile, infinitesimal gap between dying and living,"[11]

Also in 2017, the novel was nominated for the Toronto Book Awards.[13][14]

In 2018, the book was shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize.[15][16]

Life on the Ground Floor was shortlisted for the 2018 Trillium Book Award[17] and for the 2018 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction.[18]

It was long-listed for the 2018 British Columbia National Award for Canadian Nonfiction.[19]

It made the Canada Reads 2019 Long list.[20]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 André Picard (2017-04-13). "James Maskalyk's Life on the Ground Floor, reviewed: Why emergency medicine is the great equalizer". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  2. ↑ Patrick, Ryan B (19 Oct 2017). "Why James Maskalyk wanted to explore the human side of emergency medicine". CBC.
  3. ↑ "Spruce Grove-born doctor, James Maskalyk, releases his second memoir, makes best-seller list". sprucegroveexaminer. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  4. 1 2 3 "Opinion | A master of the medical memoir". The Toronto Star. 2017-11-21. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  5. ↑ "The best Canadian nonfiction of 2017". CBC. 19 Dec 2017.
  6. ↑ "The Globe 100: These are the best books of 2017". The Globe and Mail. 2017-11-24. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  7. ↑ "The Globe 100: These are the best books of 2017". The Globe and Mail. 2017-11-24. Retrieved 2021-12-16.
  8. ↑ "The Complete NP99: The best books of 2017". nationalpost. Retrieved 2021-12-16.
  9. ↑ "Bookworms Unite! The 20 Best Books of 2017". Chatelaine. 7 December 2017.
  10. ↑ Patrick, Ryan B (20 Sep 2017). "Terese Marie Mailhot, Elizabeth Hay among finalists for $60K Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction". CBC.
  11. 1 2 Patrick, Ryan B. (14 Nov 2017). "David Chariandy, James Maskalyk, Louise Bernice Halfe among 2017 Writers' Trust Award winners". CBC.
  12. ↑ "David Chariandy, Billie Livingston, and Diane Schoemperlen among the winners at the 2017 Writers' Trust awards". Quill and Quire. 2017-11-15. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  13. ↑ "Book excerpt: James Maskalyk's 'Life on the Ground Floor'". The Toronto Star. 2017-10-12. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  14. ↑ Koeverden, Jane van (24 Aug 2017). "Jen Agg, Catherine Hernandez nominated for Toronto Book Awards". CBC.
  15. ↑ Patrick, Ryan B. (13 Jul 2017). "Tanya Talaga and James Maskalyk among finalists for $30K RBC Taylor Prize". CBC.
  16. ↑ "Tanya Talaga, James Maskalyk, Jan Wong longlisted for RBC Taylor Prize". Quill and Quire. 2017-12-06. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  17. ↑ Staff, N. O. W. (2018-05-31). "Trillium Award finalists deliver Ontarios diverse stories". NOW Magazine. Retrieved 2021-12-16.
  18. ↑ Artists, Westwood Creative (2018-09-14). "Maskalyk Shortlisted for Edna Staebler Award". Westwood Creative Artists. Retrieved 2021-12-16.
  19. ↑ "British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction 2018". nnels.ca. Retrieved 2021-12-16.
  20. ↑ "Here is the Canada Reads 2019 longlist". CBC. 10 Jan 2019.
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