Paul C. Thornton - White Man's Disease

Poignant, sad, tragic, funny, and compelling. At 29, Paul Thornton thought he was at the top of his game. Married to his beautiful childhood sweetheart, a rising star at one of the world’s largest companies, and gifted with a tall, commanding presence, Paul Thornton had a future as bright as the morning sun. But then a catastrophe left him without his wife and the mother of his children, his career in jeopardy, and his life measured by the thin blade of a skilled surgeon. White Man’s Disease succeeds because it covers the basics, describing in almost clinical detail the operation that changed Thornton’s life. But the book transcends that basic story to become a tale of hope and redemption, and providing social commentary on the past quarter century of social change. Issues of affirmative action, the home media revolution, medical ethics and responsibility, and higher education with the traditional American virtues of hard work and sacrifice inform White Man’s Disease, making it not only a book about one man’s victory, but a larger story about the power of human resilience and the essential American Dream of realizing one's full potential.