Strangers Drowning: Voyages to the Brink of Moral Extremity - Hardcover

MacFarquhar, Larissa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1846143985 ISBN 13: 9781846143984

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2015

Synopsis

SUNDAY TIMES and GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015

What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment, and tells their intimate stories: their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their wrenching dilemmas.

A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: if they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt twenty. But how do they weigh the needs of unknown children in distress against the needs of the children they already have?

Another couple founds a leprosy colony in the wilderness in India, living in huts with no walls, knowing that their two small children may contract leprosy or be eaten by panthers. The children survive. But what if they hadn't? How would their parents' risk have been judged?

We honour such generosity and high ideals; but when we call people 'do-gooders' there is scepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the novels, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture.

Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Moving and provocative, Strangers Drowning challenges us to think about what we value most, and why.

About this title

Product Description:

What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment, and tells their intimate stories: their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their wrenching dilemmas. A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: if they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt twenty. But how do they weigh the needs of unknown children in distress against the needs of the children they already have? Another couple founds a leprosy colony in the wilderness in India, living in huts with no walls, knowing that their two small children may contract leprosy or be eaten by panthers. The children survive. But what if they hadn't? How would their parents' risk have been judged? We honour such generosity and high ideals; but when we call people 'do-gooders' there is scepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the novels, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture. Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Moving and provocative, Strangers Drowning challenges us to think about what we value most, and why.

Review:

For Christmas, I'd be overjoyed to receive a copy of Strangers Drowning by Larissa MacFarquhar (Curtis Sittenfeld, Books of the Year Guardian)

Beautifully written, MacFarquhar's book digs deep into the awkward questions raised by ultra-morality, yet keeps a light touch (Books of the Year Sunday Times)

Superb... The author's tone throughout Strangers Drowning is that of a serious and wide-awake novelist... If her book does not provoke and unsettle you, you may not have a pulse (New York Times)

Chilling and utterly absorbing... Combining critical analysis with compassion, the book's treatment is reminiscent of Oliver Sacks, who explored the more extraordinary aspects of ordinary lives (Frances Wilson Daily Telegraph)

Strangers Drowning is a book written in a deceptively simple and clear voice about people, about how morality lodges itself in a person not as an abstract idea, or even a value, but as a direction for life... Impressive (Financial Times)

Larissa MacFarquhar's facinating encounters with the relentless logic of extreme do-gooders pose important questions for all of us (Observer)

MacFarquhar writes beautifully and makes us think intensely about the tormenting question of how to balance inequality and injustice against privilege... (Sunday Times)

Narrated with such even-handed curiosity, such compassion for human endeavour and forgiveness of fallibility, that you cannot help but share MacFarquhar's admiration and see that these predicaments matter (Spectator)

Excellent... The strength of this insightful and grown-up book is to leave the discomfort in place without succumbing to a new sentimentality or absolutism (Rowan Williams Literary Review)

Profound, absorbing, and utterly brilliant. The stories unfold like parables. Larissa MacFarquhar shows us people who are devoted to simply trying to do the most good they can in their lives. And in the process she gets us to think about some of mankind's deepest, most ancient questions-like how you should live and what life is for. It is a work of philosophy, journalism, and beautiful storytelling all in one. Read this book (Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal)

About this edition

• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1846143985
• ISBN 13: 9781846143984
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336