A Man after His Own Heart

On a rainy December night in 1998, Charles Siebert was given the rare opportunity to accompany a team of surgeons both in the harvesting of a human heart from the body of a young woman who’d recently died, and in the subsequent implantation of that heart into a waiting recipient. Beginning with his harrowing weeklong wait for the harvest call, Siebert weaves a seamless series of reflections about history’s obsession with this central and vital organ and about modern...
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On a rainy December night in 1998, Charles Siebert was given the rare opportunity to accompany a team of surgeons both in the harvesting of a human heart from the body of a young woman who’d recently died, and in the subsequent implantation of that heart into a waiting recipient. Beginning with his harrowing weeklong wait for the harvest call, Siebert weaves a seamless series of reflections about history’s obsession with this central and vital organ and about modern science’s latest startling discoveries concerning both the heart’s biological origins and its long-intuited role in the play of our emotions. The resulting mix is a journey into the literal and ?gurative heart of our being and the previously unexplored ways in which the matter of modern science and timeless metaphor meet.