Product Review

Recommended by the Lupus Foundation and updated with notes in 2017, A Lupus Handbook: These Are The Faces Of Lupus is both informative and a moving personal account. Flannery O'Connor once wrote that sickness has no company--it is in defiance of this stark reality that A. G. Moore wrote her book. She was first diagnosed with lupus in 1996, though she dealt with its effects long before that. Through flares and remissions she strove to educate herself, to become informed. She wanted to be a participant in her own care, to shape as much as possible the course of her treatment and the quality of her life. A disease like lupus often does not offer a lot of options, but there are always choices to be made. A. G. Moore was committed to knowing about those choices and to being a responsible partner in determining which of those choices was best for her. This book is thoroughly documented. Sources for technical sections of the book are almost exclusively peer-reviewed journals. As for the brief biographical sketches she offers of eleven public figures--all of these individuals were diagnosed with lupus. In every case, the disease did not define a life, though in some cases it did take life. Each "celebrity" managed to forge a unique path despite lupus, not because of it. A. G. Moore hopes every reader, every person with lupus or any disease, is able to do the same.