the pharmacist's mate
amy fusselman

photo by Chad Cochran

Amy Fusselman sings Hell’s Bells sweetly and lyrically. When I think of her recent book, The Pharmacist’s Mate, I think of AC/DC. That’s because on a rainy day in Seattle Amy Fusselman held her guitar close and played Hell’s Bells. Not AC/DC style, but sappy girl style. She made the song beautiful and wonderful. Like her book.

The prose is simple to read. It made me smile constantly as if it was being read to me. The Pharmacist’s Mate is quite real in its eighty odd pages. Perhaps nothing huge happens, but the words come off the page full of life. It envokes the pain of loss and the fear of what is to come. The author’s story intertwines with her own father’s journal. She (Amy Fusselman) is trying to get pregnant while her father is treating men. She visits the doctor repeatedly. He is a doctor. In this book Amy Fusselman yells out that she needs her father, and she whispers it quieter than most people can hear.

Read the book in a day. It radiates and fills you up inside. And then it is over. Available at cool INDEPENDENT bookstores everywhere, and through McSweeney's. Published by McSweeney’s.