We are delighted to welcome author Jim Bailey to Omnimystery News today.
A looming menace lurks within the towers of American medicine … with Jim's new medical thriller is The End of Healing (The Healthy City; September 2014 hardcover and ebook formats, and now available in trade paperback) centered on one young doctor determined to uncover the truth.
We recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Jim to talk more about his book.
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Omnimystery News: Into which fiction genre would you place The End of Healing?
Photo provided courtesy of
Jim Bailey
Jim Bailey: I would categorize The End of Healing as both historical fiction and psychological and medical thriller. One disadvantage to calling it historical fiction is that many people interpret historical fiction as not relevant for today. However, my story is set in the very recent past (2001-2002) and paints a portrait of healthcare in America today. The whole point of the story is that what was true then is true now; almost nothing has changed. Likewise, when people hear medical thriller they may discount the story as fantasy. But everything about The End of Healing is grounded in reality; the statistics in the book are real. Perhaps the best description would be that it is a classic myth of modern times. It tells — far better than any nonfiction work ever could — the true story of the modern healer, the corruption he confronts, and the personal and professional obstacles he must overcome in order to become a true healer.
OMN: The central character in The End of Healing is a black man. Did you find it difficult to find the right voice for him?
JB: My protagonist, Dr. Don Newman, is black, and I am white. In 2004, the second year of my work on The End of Healing, I awoke one morning with a flash of inspiration. I realized that the reason my protagonist was so severely conflicted about his identity was that he was of mixed race but had passed for white his whole life. Concerned that I would be unable to provide an authentic voice for an African American character, I asked several African American friends to read early manuscripts. To my relief, they affirmed that Don's perspective as I had written it rang true. One of them actually "accused" me of passing. At that point, I knew I had the right point of view.
OMN: Tell us something about the book that isn't mentioned in the synopsis.
JB: I started writing The End of Healing in 2004 while on sabbatical in Florence, Italy, the hometown of Dante Alighieri, author of the classic Divine Comedy. The first book of that trilogy, Dante's Inferno, had provided inspiration for my novel, and each time I walked past the statue of him in the Piazza delle Santa Croce, I'd see his grim visage scowling down at me with disapproval that I was out walking and enjoying the city and had not yet finished my book. Across the centuries, Dante both tormented and encouraged me to persevere and finish my work to expose the hidden corruption in healthcare in the same way that Dante's work exposed the hidden corruption of his time.
OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in the book?
JB: The End of Healing is set in the real world of healthcare, a world I know well from my day job. The characters are fictional, but many are composites of patients and providers I have known. The book features over 150 real corporations, describes their roles in the current health care crisis, and shows what they — and we as individuals — must do if we want to serve the true and just ends of healing in the world today.
OMN: Describe your writing environment.
JB: I can write anywhere. The most important thing is to write whenever I get the inspiration. Whenever an idea goes through my brain of the perfect phrase or the best arrangement of some book section, I immediately write it down. That has led me to scribble notes in some pretty strange places — on beaches, balconies, in lectures, in church.. My favorite writing place was in the small rooftop study of our apartment in Italy. It looked out over the tiled rooftops of Florence. During the day it could really heat up in there, so my favorite time was in the morning, when a cool breeze blew through the open windows.
OMN: How did you go about researching the plot points of the story?
JB: The End of Healing required a tremendous amount of research. Fortunately, in my career as a physician and professor, I've spent over two decades studying health systems improvement and healthcare quality. I have access to the best researchers in America and worldwide. However, my most important teachers are my patients. Caring for the critically ill and listening to their stories and experiences of the healthcare system was of paramount importance in writing this book. As my young protagonist learns, in order to learn how to improve American healthcare, first we have to listen to the patients.
OMN: How true are you to the settings in the book?
JB: The End of Healing combines real and fictional places. The two main settings — The University Hospital in Boston and Florence College in New Hampshire — are fictional. The University Hospital in Boston is a composite fictitious setting combining some of the worst aspects of university hospitals all over the country. Florence College is a fictional Ivy League school, but the events that transpire in the secret society are similar to the many hazing events that have occurred all over the United States. One of my favorite fictional settings in the book is the hidden underground cemetery Don discovers when he visits the Grafton County Cemetery Preservation Society. It's inspired by a real slave cemetery discovered during excavation for a road in New Hampshire.
OMN: If we could send you anywhere in the world to research the setting for a story, where would it be?
JB: I want to research in Memphis, Tennessee. I live in Memphis but am working so hard as a physician, researcher, and teacher that it's hard to make time for the historical research and character study needed for fiction. There are so many incredible characters here in Memphis and a rich history regarding race, social movements, and culture. I'd stay in the best hotel in Memphis overlooking the great Mississippi River and spend my days exploring its historical archives, abandoned hospitals, and magnificent graveyards.
OMN: What are some of your oustide interests? And have any of these found their way into your book?
JB: I love languages, especially Italian. I love great books, especially the most ancient of our classics, the stories of the Bible from the Middle East, the stories of ancient Greece and Rome, and of course the literature of medieval and Renaissance Italy. And I love to look to natural history, nature, and archaeology to better understand the world we inhabit. Like my protagonist, Don Newman, I enjoy running and hiking in the woods. Although I very much wanted to, I didn't get to play football like he did.
OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?
JB: When an inspiration comes, write it down. But don't wait for it. Set aside time each day to write. And don't expect your marvelous thoughts to come out exactly right the first time. Edit, edit, edit. And then edit some more.
OMN: Complete this sentence for us: "I am a historical-psychological-medical thriller author and thus I am also …".
JB: I am a historical-psychological-medical thriller author and thus I am also a lover of what is deep, hidden, and important. I like to plunge beyond the superficial and discover the inner heart of my characters and the roles they play in the world.
OMN: Tell us a little more about the intriguing book cover and its title.
JB: The book cover design features a little-known painting from the walls of a 16th century virtual reality room in a Renaissance pleasure palace in Mantova, Italy. The painting depicts mythological giants with their temples crashing down upon them, destroyed by Zeus' thunderbolts from heaven. Near The End of Healing's exciting conclusion, this painting reveals hidden secrets to Don about the end of healing as we know it.
OMN: What kind of feedback have you received from readers?
JB: People who have experienced modern healthcare firsthand as patients love this book. Again and again, people who have experienced serious illness or cared for a loved one with chronic illness have thanked me for telling their stories. My best review of all came from a beloved AP English teacher who read The End of Healing in her last two months of life as she was dying from pancreatic cancer. I was deeply touched that she thought it worth her time in her last days, and then had her husband buy ten copies to give to the doctors and nurses who had cared for her.
OMN: Create a Top 5 list for us on any topic.
JB: I couldn't choose just five, so here are my Top 11 favorite books:
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Narcissus and Goldmund, Hermann Hesse
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Shaman, Noah Gordon
House of God, Samuel Shem
Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
Emma, Jane Austen
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Jim Bailey is a fellow in the American College of Physicians and professor of medicine and preventive medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, where he directs the Center for Health Systems Improvement, cares for the sick, and teaches doctors in training. His research appears in many peer-reviewed medical journals, including AMA, Journal of General Internal Medicine, and Annals of Internal Medicine. Dr. Bailey has an abiding passion for the classics, medical history, and ethics, and believes that sharing our stories can heal.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at EndOfHealing.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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The End of Healing by Jim Bailey
A Medical Thriller
Publisher: The Healthy City
Don Newman, a resident physician at the renowned University Hospital, awakens to the screams of his pager in a windowless call room in the middle of the night. He runs to the dark ward to attend to a dying woman strapped to a bed and realizes-despite working long and hard to become a doctor and having sworn to do no harm-harm has become his business.
So begins Dr. Newman's quest to become a healer in a system that puts profits ahead of patients. He abandons his plans to become a cardiologist and enrolls in an Ivy League graduate program in health system science, where an unorthodox professor promises to guide him ever deeper into the dark secrets of the healthcare industry. Don joins fellow students-the alluring Frances Hunt, a sharp nurse practitioner, and Bruce Markum, a cocky, well-connected surgeon-on a journey through the medical underworld. When Dr. Newman unearths evidence of a conspiracy stretching from the halls of Congress to Wall Street and even to his small campus, his harmless course of study becomes deadly serious. Will he be silenced? Or will he find a way to save his patients and others from needless torture?
— The End of Healing by Jim Bailey
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