I loved the premise of this book, but I wasn't impressed when actually reading it. It was filled with medical language that the non medically educated more than likely will find dry. I think that this man's journey should be chronicled, but I think it could have been done better.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

James C. Moore is a seasoned journalist who covered presidential politics for years. A former TV news correspondent, he is also a New York Times best-selling author of six books prior to this one. A few years ago, while watching the TV one afternoon, Moore noted dark insect-like flecks floating across the field of vision in his right eye. He promptly phoned his optometrist, who, after examining Moore, subsequently made an emergency referral to a skilled, Ivy-League-trained ophthalmologist. This eye specialist diagnosed a retinal detachment.

As people age, the clear, gel-like substance that fills the inside of the eyes, known as the vitreous, tends to shrink slightly and become more watery. The vitreous can put enough pressure on the retina to make it tear. The older, now thinner gel can flow in through the tear and actually lift the retina off the back of the eye. (Myopic—short-sighted—eyes, which have a greater front to back length, are also more vulnerable to retinal tears and detachments.) Left untreated, a detached retina can lead to blindness. The retina contains cells sensitive to incoming light. In response to light, these cells trigger nerve impulses, which are sent along the optic nerve to the brain. Without a functioning retina, light can’t be transformed into electro-neural impulses, and our brains can’t form visual images.

Over a period of five years, Moore was submitted to a number of surgical procedures by a supposedly “skilled-enough” ophthalmologist, but Moore’s retina would not stay attached. He was apparently an outlier, for whom the procedures would not take. In a last-ditch attempt to save the vision in his right eye, he ended up travelling from Texas to Tennessee, to consult the legendary, indefatigable retinal surgeon, Dr. Steve Charles. At 75, Dr. Charles, who had developed a remarkable number of retinal surgery techniques and instruments, was still skilfully performing ten microsurgical retinal operations a day. (He’d performed approximately 38, 000 in his career to that point.) When he wasn’t working, he was travelling to provide charity care and teach others around the world the procedures that could save the vision of patients with detached retinas. Sadly, by the time Dr. Charles examined Moore, his condition was inoperable. However, the journalist was intrigued by this extraordinarily high-energy, single-minded medical specialist and felt his accomplishments should be known by more than a relatively small number of retinal surgeons—hence, this book.

Moore proceeds to provide a history of the development of surgical techniques for the repair of the tearing and detachment of the retina. He details the achievements of big innovators of 1960s and 1970s ophthalmological surgery who trained Dr. Charles at the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute.

I regret to say that I found the book’s many technical details and its considerable medical jargon extremely dry reading. Not far into the third chapter, I decided not to complete the book. While Moore’s text does contain photographs of scientists, equipment, and instruments involved in retinal surgery, there is, quite stunningly, not a single diagram of the eye! Moore assumes that his reader has the same knowledge that he, a sufferer of retinal detachment, gained over a five-year period as a patient and during the additional years it took to write his book.

Though I found Moore’s writing far from engaging, I’ll allow that it is grammatical and competent. I’m sure if I’d been more interested in the material or more motivated, I could have finished the book. The fact is: I probably was not overly keen on reading about eye surgery techniques, instruments, and equipment to begin with, and Moore did little to inspire interest. I was expecting a book geared more towards a reasonably intelligent lay person. I didn’t get it. Moore does not methodically guide a reader, such as myself, who has only basic knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the eye and almost no familiarity with eye surgery. Instead, from the get-go, he bombards the reader with medical terminology. When approaching new medical subjects, I prefer a more supportive approach that provides me with diagrams and some basic explanations. Because I felt I wasn’t getting what I needed, I spent an inordinate amount of time googling medical terms and eye diagrams and images. I didn’t have much confidence that I could read the book without this kind of educative “front loading”. Even that proved to be inadequate to the task: too much work for far too little pleasure.

I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect an author to do some of this work for a lay reader—which raises another issue: Who, exactly, is Moore’s intended audience? In the foreword, retired Iowa ophthalmologist/retinal surgeon Christopher Blodi suggests there are three types of readers for the book: (1) those with medical problems who are trying to negotiate their own way through the healthcare system or adjust to disability; (2) those interested in “driven” individuals; and (3) ophthalmology specialists interested in learning more about someone who has dominated the field. I’m not sure that I fit into any of these categories, and maybe that’s why I found the book so unsatisfying. My sense is that only the third type of reader could cope well with this text.

I received this ARC e-book from NetGalley and the publisher, Greenleaf Book Group, in exchange for an honest review.

To begin with I could only tolerate about 1/3 of this book. It is very poorly written with lots and lots of repetition. For example, there was a whole paragraph repeated word for word from chapter one to chapter two.

The book was purportedly written for laymen interested in sight restoration, particularly in Steve Charles’ innovations in treatment of problems with the vitreous. The author started out explaining ocular problems in laymen’s terms, yet not in an elementary fashion. Soon, however, he segued into scientific and ophthalmologic jargon. He would go back and forth from a story line (which jumped all over the place) to lecturing (to medical students?). The lectures didn’t seem to maintain a relationship to the problems involved in the story line. However, the story line was not consistent, either.

I’m sure the life and life-work of Steve Charles was a story worth chronicling, but this book did not do it justice.