Title: Dead Man Dreaming
Author: Uday Mukerji
Paperback: 238 pages
Publisher: Adelaide Books (October 12, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1951214463
ISBN-13: 978-1951214463
Dead Man Dreaming is a literary fiction about one man's fight against hereditary genetic diseases – from losing his girlfriend to finding love again – and how he overcomes his fear and frustrations and comes to terms with his own Huntington's disease.
The confirmation of HD brings the senior resident physician, David’s life to a halt. His three-year-old relationship with his girlfriend, Chloe, also comes to an end. But instead of resigning to his sorry state, he dreams of finding a solution to prevent all hereditary genetic diseases. With his high school friend, Jessie, he starts an awareness campaign for Carrier Screening Tests for all before becoming a parent. The movement brings an overwhelming response, but not without condemnations. And through all that, David finds new love and new hope in life again.
It’s the journey of a desperate man with a death sentence hanging over his head that makes this book inspiring and riveting.
My Thoughts
Uday Mukerji introduces us to David and we learn through this book, written like an autobiography, what it means to be faced with a genetic disease.
If a parent has a dominant genetic disease, then that person's child has a 50% chance of inheriting the disease.
When David was only 12 years old his dad passed away with Huntington's Disease. HD causes a progressive breakdown of nerve cells in the brain causing a person's physical and mental deterioration. As such, David's memories of his dad were watching him through a window either bound by his wheelchair or to his bed
David and his girlfriend Chloe both practice medicine. David learns he too is HD positive. Soon after, he dumps Chloe and turns down his dream job of becoming a Heart Surgeon. He decides, instead, to focus his attention on building a barrier for passing diseases onto the next generation.
In pops an old classmate, Jessie, and her son, Lukas, who has hemophilia. And through this book, we see the courage it takes to face a hereditary disease and learn that life is about living in the moment.
I received this thought-provoking novel through the generosity of the author, Uday Mukerji, for an honest review.
About the Author
Uday Mukerji was born in India and had worked as a creative director in advertising agencies in Singapore for nearly twenty years. However, in 2009, he left his job to pursue a career in writing. His first literary fiction, a 2017 Readers’ Favorite Award Winner, Love, Life, and Logic was published by Harvard Square Editions, NY in November 2016.