Jacob M. Appel

“An original, compelling, and provocative exploration of ethical issues in our society, with thoughtful and balanced commentary. I have not seen anything like it.” —Alan Lightman, author of Einstein’s Dreams Drawing upon the author’s two decades teaching medical ethics, as well as his work as a practicing psychiatrist, this profound and addictive little book offers up challenging ethical dilemmas and asks readers, What would you do? A daughter gets tested to see if she’s a match to donate a kidney to her father. The test reveals that she is not the man’s biological daughter. Should the doctor tell the father? Or the daughter? A deaf couple prefers a deaf baby. Should they be allowed to use medical technology to ensure they have a child who can’t hear? Who should get custody of an embryo created through IVF when a couple divorces? Or, when you or a loved one is on life support, Who says you’re dead? In short, engaging scenarios, Dr. Appel takes on hot-button issues that many of us will confront: genetic screening, sexuality, privacy, doctor-patient confidentiality. He unpacks each hypothetical with a brief reflection drawing from science, philosophy, and history, explaining how others have approached these controversies in real-world cases. Who Says You’re Dead? is designed to defy easy answers and to stimulate thought and even debate among professionals and armchair ethicists alike.

Medical & Ethical Dilemmas for the Curious & Concerned

Who Says You're Dead?

"Arnold Brinkmann is a timid, ultra-liberal botanist living in New York. He loves his plants, not his country. But when he accidentally insults the whole of America at a baseball game, he is drawn into an absurdist nightmare of press, preachers and pushy patriots. And it's only going to get worse if he won't apologise..."-- Page [4] of cover.

The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up

A couple adopt a depressed hedgehog; a mother is seduced by the father of her daughter's imaginary friend; a man kidnap's his ex-wife's turtle. In eight tragicomic stories, Einstein's Beach House features ordinary men and women rising to life's extraordinary challenges.

Stories

Einstein's Beach House

"On the outside, Dr. Jeremy Balint is a pillar of the community: the youngest division chief at his hospital, a model son to his elderly parents, fiercely devoted to his wife and two young daughters. On the inside, Dr. Jeremy Balint is a high-functioning sociopath--a man who truly believes himself to stand above the ethical norms of society. As long as life treats him well, Balint has no cause to harm others. When life treats him poorly, he reveals the depths of his cold-blooded depravity. At a cultural moment when the media bombards us with images of so-called sociopaths who strive for good and criminals redeemed by repentance,The Mask of Sanity offers an antidote to implausible tales of evil gone right. In contrast to fictional predecessors like Dostoyevesky's Raskolnikov and Camus' Mersault, Dr. Balint is a man who already has it all--and will do everything in his power, no matter how immoral, to keep what he has."--Amazon.com.

The Mask of Sanity

"In an effort to forestall the frailty and isolation of old age, psychiatrist Millard Salter intends to kill himself at the end of the day-but not before he ties up his life's loose ends. These include a with his ne'er-do-well youngest son, Lysander, who at 43 has yet to hold down a paying job; an unscheduled rendezvous with his first wife, Carol, whom he hasn't seen in 27 years; and a brief visit to the grave of his second wife, Isabelle, with whom he fathered an illegitimate child. Yet on what he intends to be the final day of his life, Millard has also assumed a far greater responsibility: to assist a theater director suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease in ending her own life with a helium hood. Complicating this plan is that, during the months since Compassionate Endings has paired Millard with Delilah, the widower has fallen in love with her. As Millard sets about wrapping up his life, he confronts a lifetime of challenges during a single day: a narcissistic colleague intent on having his job, an obsessive administrator browbeating him for a report that will doom his colleagues, and an escaped lynx that is roaming the hospital in search of prey. Meanwhile, as Millard prepares for his impending suicide, his family is planning a surprise for him of its own"--

Millard Salter's Last Day

With compassion, wit, humor, and intelligence, these stories explore the gray areas of our lives. Echoes of myth, fairy tale, and fable flavor them, underscoring the eternal nature of both the human condition and storytelling itself.

The Topless Widow of Herkimer Street

Stories in which ordinary people confront extraordinary, unexpected events and strive to embrace their new realities.

Scouting for the Reaper

A collection of short personal essays on complex issues that range from humorous to poignant

Essays

Phoning Home

stories

The liars' asylum

In his ninth book and fifth collection of stories, Jacob M. Appel introduces readers to a diplomat's wife who attempts to seduce her chimney sweep through Norwegian lessons, a minister whose dead wife is romantically involved with Greta Garbo, and a landlord menaced by a rent-delinquent mime.

Coulrophobia & Fata Morgana

Fiction. Winner of the Serena McDonald Kennedy Fiction Award. The stories in THE MAGIC LAUNDRY stem from Appel's work as a psychiatrist in New York City, and his particular interest in how ordinary people cope with extraordinary challenges. He hopes these stories will encourage his readers to place themselves in the shoes of his protagonists and to ask themselves how they would handle the tribulations confronted by his characters.

The Magic Laundry

Amy Reed

Bhanu Kapil

Natalie Baszile

Alexis Coe

Quincy Troupe

Judy Grahn

Eugenia Leigh

Eric Gamalinda

Susanna Sonnenberg

Tony Phillips

Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

Ajuan Mance

Indira Allegra

Kris Brandenburger

Chip Goldstein

Lisa Grey

John Pleucker

Liana Scalettar

Cindy Shearer

Margaret Porter Troupe

Interdisciplinary arts print magazine published annually by the MFA program at California Institute of Integral Studies

Mission at Tenth

Phoning Home is a collection of entertaining and thought-provoking essays featuring the author’s quirky family, his Jewish heritage, and his New York City upbringing. Jacob M. Appel’s recollections and insights, informed and filtered by his advanced degrees in medicine, law, and ethics, not only inspire nostalgic feelings but also offer insight into contemporary medical and ethical issues. At times sardonic and at others self-deprecating, Appel lays bare the most private aspects of his emotional life. “We’d just visited my grandaunt in Miami Beach, the last time we would ever see her. I had my two travel companions, Fat and Thin, securely buckled into the backseat of my mother’s foul-tempered Dodge Dart,” writes Appel of his family vacation with his two favorite rubber cat toys. Shortly thereafter Fat and Thin were lost forever—beginning, when Appel was just six years old, what he calls his “private apocalypse.” Both erudite and full-hearted, Appel recounts storylines ranging from a bout of unrequited love gone awry to the poignant romance of his grandparents. We learn of the crank phone calls he made to his own family, the conspicuous absence of Jell-O at his grandaunt’s house, and family secrets long believed buried. The stories range from the humorous to the poignant and capture the author’s distinctive voice—a blend of a physician’s compassion and an ethicist’s constant questioning.

Jacob M. Appel

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