No visible signs of use. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down explores the clash between a small county hospital in California and a refugee family from Laos over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child diagnosed with severe epilepsy. Lia's parents and her doctors both wanted what was best for Lia, but the lack of understanding between them led to tragedy. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Intetest, and the Boston Book Review Rea Award for Non-fiction, Anne Fadiman's compassionate account of this cultural impasse is literary journalism at its finest. "So good I want to somehow make it required reading.....The Spirit Catcges You and You Fall Down explores issues of culture, immigration, medicine, and the war in [Laos] with such skill that it's nearly impossible to put down. " -Linnea Lannon, Detroit Free Press "Ms Fadiman tells her story with a novelist's grace, playing the role of cultural broker, comprehending those who do not comprehend each other and perceiving what might have been done or said to make the outcome different. " -Richard Bernstein, The New York Times

ISBN: 9780374525644