Gabriel Brownstein

A Story about Birth and Death and Cardiac Surgery

The Open Heart Club

Nine stories about a group of eccentric New York residents follow the experiences of young Davie Birnbaum and his witness to the unfolding lives of his fellow tenants, an elderly man aging in reverse, a man who abandons his family to spy on them, and more. A first collection. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Apt. 3W

This absorbing and poignant book is not merely the story of one writer's flawed heart. It is a history of cardiac medicine, a candid personal journey, and a profound reflection on mortality. Born in 1966 with a congenital heart defect known as the tetralogy of Fallot, Gabriel Brownstein entered the world just as doctors were learning to operate on conditions like his. He received a life-saving surgery at five years old, and since then has ridden wave after wave of medical innovation, a series of interventions that have kept his heart beating. The Open Heart Club is both a memoir of a life on the edge of medicine's reach and a history of the remarkable people who have made such a life possible. It begins with the visionary anatomists of the seventeenth century, tells the stories of the doctors (all women) who invented pediatric cardiology, and includes the lives of patients and physicians struggling to understand the complexities of the human heart. The Open Heart Club is a riveting work of compassionate storytelling, a journey into the dark hinterlands between sickness and health lit by bright moments of humor and inspiration.

Five stories are set in one apartment buiding, where young Davey Birnbaum watches his neighbours' lives unfold. The title story reworks F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, whose hero is born as an old man and ages in reverse.

Gabriel Brownstein

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