A really well done book that looks at some deep issues in life. I really enjoyed the whole storyline and the characters were relatable.

A book you never would have expected Ross Douthat to write - and a book Ross Douthat probably never expected himself to write either. The easy way out is for the outside observer to throw up his hands and say "eh, who really knows if there's such a thing as Chronic Lyme." But Douthat does his best to pin you down, and not let you get away with indifference. If he is right - and the agonies he recounts are powerful evidence that *something* was malfunctioning beyond just a mental level - his diagnosis of the overly-credentialed and -bureaucratic medical profession draws real blood. And certainly the vivid, horror-novel like feel to many of the chapters leave the ultimate impression of "there but for the grace of God go I," when the argument of the book would like to push that reaction towards a very real sense that there are more things on heaven and on earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy - or at least in your medical textbooks and insurance forms.

I felt this book deep in my heart and my body since I also suffer from chronic illness. It's a powerful memoir that many should read to understand people like us.

Since reading "Sick: A Memoir" by Porochista Khakpour, I've been thoroughly interested (and equally terrified) in learning about Lyme Disease, and how it affects the individual. "The Deep Places" is a touching and heartbreaking look at one man's love/hate relationship for his new Connecticut dream property, and the everlasting effects of a single tick bite that changes his whole world. My heart ached for Douthat knowing how terrible it must have been to have your family's dream turn into an all-consuming nightmare -- and I had a hard time putting this book down.

It's raw, well-written and fascinating. I highly recommend this book for memoir lovers!

Thank you to NetGalley and Convergent Books for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was an incredible read. Totally earth-shattering. It was such a powerful narrative about chronic illness, hope and modern medicine. At times, it was terrifying to read about what Ross went through, but also I couldn't put it down.

I got this book last year, but only got around to reading it this year.
And what an insightful read. As luck would have it, I contracted tick-bite fever in December of last year. Being in South Africa means we don't have Lyme's disease. But as I was reading the book, I thought back to how ill I was over that time and considered how it would be to feel like that for almost 6 years. It was a sobering thought.
A well-written book that leaves you thinking that the ""One size fits all"" thought of medicine is not really true. Especially in terms of chronic illnesses.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this book.

The author is a great writer and there was a lot I could relate to in this book. I have had a chronic illness that was dismissed constantly until I found a doctor (who I wasn't even going to for this issue) who helped me. I have another chronic illness that, like Lyme, is very different in every case. I've had specialists dismiss my symptoms as not related, and I definitely see the crowd-funding by patients of our experiences and, yes, sometimes experiments.

I was glad the author ended on such a positive note. On the downside, parts of this are dry, parts are just difficult to read, and parts leave the reader wanting more depth. However, I think this is a valuable read for those struggling to understand the inner struggles of those with chronic diseases. 3.5 stars.

I empathize with the author and the events that unfold in this book. My only wish is to focus on the technical reasons for why the scientific community can't diagnose long term Lyme.

As someone who knew little about Lyme disease, I found this memoir to be a great resource in understanding the illness. You can tell Ross is a journalist, and has experience researching his subject in order to present all the facts. This was easy to read, and really provided an inside look at how this disease affects a person’s physical, mental, and neurological health; not to mention his family life, his finances, and his spiritual journey. It was shocking to me what people with this disease go through with no guarantee of recovery. It was inspiring to hear his perseverance throughout everything. I am glad I read this book.

While I do not suffer from Lyme disease, I do suffer from another chronic illness- endometriosis. So much of the author's journey resonated with me; the uncaring medical professionals and implied mental illness. After all, we LOOK healthy. His was an interesting journey to follow. And while I am no stranger to ticks in northwestern Pennsylvania, I will certainly be more aware of them after learning of his torturous experience. Overall I would rate this a 3.5.

Oh, I strongly disliked this memoir. As someone who has been on both sides of the coin - someone who worked in healthcare, and who has also dealt with disability and chronic illness (though, to be fair, not Lyme Disease) I found many of Douthat's characterizations, assumptions, and criticisms deeply unfair. I don't disagree that there are a slew of doctors with no bedside manner, who rely almost solely on lab work rather than full histories and physicals. (And Lyme is far from the only disease that can be missed due to negative lab tests and blood work, despite Douthat's implications that this is a problem unique to Lyme). Yet there are also countless doctors who are true medical investigators and pioneers, who are invested in helping patients live fuller lives. It's worth noting that even once Douthat found a doctor who practiced outside the typical realm of Lyme care, he still conducted his own "experiments" and took a large number of both leftover prescription meds and self-administered alternative therapies and supplements (many of which he discovered through online Lyme communities, not medical professionals or scientists). He seems unwilling to trust than any doctor or scientist might know better than him.

One passage that I deeply resented was Douthat's concerns for the future, "...and through it all his father [refers to fathering his newborn son] unable to be the dad he needed, not a baseball coach or a biking tutor but a cripple in the house, tapping away on columns to pay the bills..." Parents come in all shapes, sizes, and abilities, and I deeply resented the notion that a "crippled" parent leaves a child lacking in some inherent way - we all want to give our children the best, but Douthat's view of parenting is limited at best. I also worry that he will leave many readers with the assumption that a life lived with chronic illness is one of chronic misery with no bright spots, one to be pitied, which is simply untrue for so many people. He also takes on the opioid epidemic at least once in the book, despite the fact that most overdoses do not occur to chronic pain patients, many of whom are often appropriately prescribed opioids or other pain medications (he seems to imply that the opioid epidemic is a result of patients being abandoned by doctors and taking pain relief into their own hands - probably because he takes so much of his own medical care into his own hands).

By the end of the book, Douthat takes on Covid-19 as well, and while the U.S.'s response certainly left/leaves a lot to be desired, Douthat (a journalist by trade, not a doctor or scientist) criticizes everyone from the CDC, to the FDA, to Anthony Fauci. If Covid treatments existed in direct relation to Douthat's pride and ego, we'd all be healthy with nary a concern about Covid. Douthat's assessments of the medical community would be akin to saying that he is a bad journalist because there are writers spinning falsehoods for tabloids.

I gave this book two stars (rather than one) because Douthat expressed himself clearly and the book was fairly organized and easy to follow. However, my enjoyment of the book sits at one star, rounded up.

Learning to live with a debilitating illness is quite an arduous task. For writer Ross Douthat, it becomes a constant battle to try to regain the life he once knew. He relocated his family, a pregnant wife, and two daughters to a lovely farm house in Connecticut hoping to both repair the old farm adapt an idyllic life living away from the frenetic DC life they were anxious to get away from.

After some time passes, Ross begins to feel alarmingly sick. He is stricken by headaches, nausea, and becomes a man living with constant pain. This, whatever it is, is wrecking his life. He visits a plethora of doctors and after a time gets a diagnosis of Lyme disease, which there is no course of treatment for. Ross becomes so desperate that he starts down the path of dosing himself, trying various combinations of antibiotics, drug, herbs, and literally whatever he finds to give him relief. Nothing seems to offer any long-term relief and to add to all of this, the Dumonts are forced into selling the "dream" home because of financial issues. Luckily their immediate families are wealthy and help them in many ways. Maddeningly, the CDC has refused to recognize what appears to be Ross's issues, chronic Lyme disease.

Many who have chronic pain live with it daily and often survive with the hope that one day there will be methods of treating this pain. They develop coping mechanisms that often send them into bizarre methods for treatment that offer a glimmer of hope.

Ross's story is frightening, yet it is one that many live with. Ross writes well providing copious details about his illness which at times does become a bit long winded. This story is solely about himself and lacks much detail in the way his wife and family handle the limitations of a father who is a shell of his former self. I will say that I was disappointed in that aspect of the story.

However, he and others fight for a return to normalcy, one that often seems out of their grasp.

Thank you to Ross Douthat, Convergent Books, and NetGalley for a copy of this journey Ross has taken with pain and suffering.

Important book about the stress and trauma of chronic illness and the medical industrial complex. Beautiful read by an important New York Times reporter.

A sympathetic, clearly and creatively spoken, necessary book that straddles the border between memoir and long-form science journalism. Douthat's name recognition will likely cause many – including this reviewer – to pick up this work who otherwise wouldn't have given it a second thought, but I commend The Deep Places to every curious reader regardless of his politics or religion.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for providing an ARC of The Deep Places by Ross Douthat. Ross is a New York Times columnist who writes about his harrowing account of contracting Lyme disease. This book drew my interest as over 25 years ago, my todddler daughter was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Luckily it remains dormant.
Ross became extremely sick with Lyme disease but because it is somewhat an “ invisible disease” to others, friends, relatives and colleagues did not realize the extent that it was impacting his daily life. Chronic Lyme disease can be a crippling and mysterious disease. Ross sought help from countless medical experts however he was unable to find a medically based cure. Some medical professionals believed his symptoms to be psychosomatic. He tried many treatments on his own including a regimen of herbs.
Throughout his suffering, Ross continued to travel and write his columns. He maintained his sense of humor and tried as best he could to enjoy his time with his wife and children.
Ross includes a very detailed description of Lyme disease and the history of treatments and medical advances. It was hard not to sympathize with him as he shared this memoir of his chronic disease.

I never thought that I would learn so much about Lyme disease, but I am so thankful that I was able to read The Deep Places. Ross’s illness paralleled his life’s situations so eerily, not only by being haunted by his undiagnosed illness, but also everything that he went through with the dream house that he bought right as he started to get sick.
I identified so much with Ross’s plight, as I myself have an illness that I’ve dealt with for over 12 years and despite multiple hospital stays, multiple major surgeries, and a tremendous amount of tests, I have yet to be officially diagnosed. It has been an infuriating and defeating journey, so reading Ross’s thoughts mirrored my own, making me feel all the feels, and also put the thought in my mind that I could have Lyme disease (I doubt it, but the symptoms he has are almost identical to my own, so I can’t help but wonder).

I hate that anyone has had to go through this but reading stories like this gives me a sense of comradery, knowing I am not alone in my journey. Ross’s writing is impeccable, showing off his journalistic talents, while at the same time getting down and real. At times it read more like a magazine or newspaper article and not a novel, but that’s to be expected with his profession, and I didn’t hate it.

I highly recommend this resource, especially for those of us that struggle with chronic illnesses, that are left to wonder what ails us while also trying to lead a normal life. We are in this fight together. Huge thank you to Ross for being so transparent and for taking the time to write your story.

In 2015 New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, settling into new rural bliss, was struck by terrifying pain all over his body, often in strange places, rendering him sleepless and barely functional. It took a while but he discovered he had tick-born chronic Lyme disease, a diagnosis that is not even an official diagnosis, because 21st Century medicine does not recognise it. Thousands, it turns out, have it, yet in many cases doctors end up urging patience and therapy. No formal cure exists. "The Deep Places" is Douthat’s chronicle of the next five years and I have to confess I came to the book not out of any interest in the subject, but because I’d been wowed by an edited extract. And the book bears out that instinct of mine: it is beautifully written, propulsive yet intellectually multifaceted, horrifying yet always imbued with hope. The author manages to evocatively convey his passage to the netherworld of non-official remedies, be they huge doses of antibiotics or quasi-quack offerings, and to simultaneously debate both sides of the official-versus-alternative debate. Throughout, a deep sense of appreciation for everyday quotidian life, something Douthat could rarely experience pain-free, shines through. Dear reader, read The Deep Places to see a master writer in action, and maybe to learn something new about the medical world.

Thank you to the author, Convergent Books and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This very personal recounting of the author's illness - although he is never actually diagnosed - is in turns fascinating, tiresome, infuriating, disconcerting and finally just much too long. But then again, this probably reflects much of the spectrum of experience someone afflicted with Lyme's disease goes through. Before reading this book, I was completely unaware of the drastic effects the disease can have, and the horribly broad swathe of symptoms that come with it, not to mention the utter failure of the medical establishment to get anywhere concrete on treating it. Tiresome and infuriating were the extreme focus on himself, to the almost complete exclusion of any awareness of how his situation impacted his marriage, his children, and the changes in the family dynamics - and the extreme position of financial privilege that made his story unrelatable for a majority of the population. Disconcerting were the jumps into various conspiracy theories, which I was not expecting from someone that I had until now perceived as a fairly reasonable public persona. All in all, this was a slog, and I was glad to be done with it.

This book will definitely pull on your heart strings and it’s a very good read. I’m not really into books about illness but I enjoyed reading this one. We are really stronger than we think. The author did a great job.

At one point while discussing his battle with Lyme disease, the author writes about how, with chronic illnesses, friends and family are so eager to help out whichever way they can. But when the illness just keeps keeping on, they get tired of the whole thing and stop coming around.
That’s exactly how I felt about this book. When first describing his mysterious symptoms and the frustration with a lack of diagnosis, I was intrigued. And when he finally felt some resolution, if not actual relief, from his Lyme pronouncement, I was sympathetic.
But the story never really changed. He had Lyme disease. He felt miserable. He tried every treatment in the book but he still had Lyme disease. And he still felt miserable.
I started feeling a bit miserable too with how long it was taking me to get through this book.
It picked up a bit when he recounted the advent of COVID while still dealing with his current illness. But then it was back to Lyme. And feeling miserable.
Don’t get me wrong - Lyme disease sounds horrible and I definitely feel for anyone going through what the author describes. It was just way more than I wanted to know.
Thanks to #netgalley and #convergentbooks for this ARC of #thedeepplaces in exchange for an honest review.