Five Quarts: A Personal and Natural History of Blood

From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Hemophobes beware: there are five quarts of blood in the human body, and Hayes (Sleep Demons: An Insomniac's Memoir) pours all of them into this book. A gay man living in San Francisco with an HIV-positive partner, Hayes uses his own encounters with blood's ability to save and destroy lives as a launching point for anecdotes in the larger story of blood. His personal history runs like a river through this book, picking up the flotsam and jetsam of blood lore. He launches into an account of the discovery of blood's components and its function in the body, and meanders through cultural perceptions of blood, from the sacred (the Eucharist) to the profane (Dracula). Hayes ranges far beyond red and white blood cells, platelets and plasma, taking readers inside a modern blood bank and to the bedside of a woman with hemophilia; his keen perceptions show how the ancient view of blood as the essence of a person's soul still pervades our modern vocabulary and views on the vital fluid. His sometimes irreverent commentary on misconceptions about blood doesn't shy away from the gruesome, particularly a cringe-inducing description of early blood transfusion techniques. With his strong writing and a unique approach, Hayes satisfyingly addresses this life force. B&w illus. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ReviewPraise for Bill HayesFive Quarts“A remarkable journey, at once highly erudite and profoundly personal, that leads us through history, religion, science–and our own bodies. Bill Hayes is by turns lyrical, rueful, humorous, questioning, and very moving in this book about himself, about our species, and about our past.”–Perri Klass, M.D.“Bill Hayes’s highly original meditation on blood is finally, also, a graceful and subtle love story.” –Richard Rodriguez, author of Brown: The Last Discovery of AmericaSleep Demons“A lovely weave of memory and science, great characters and compassionate humor. Insomniacs will love it for the sense of connection and solution, the rest of you (grrr) for its wisdom and wonderful writing.”–Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird“Hayes, a lifelong insomniac, pursues sleep as avidly and lyrically as Nabokov pursued butterflies.”–San Francisco Chronicle“An intelligent, beautifully written book . . . that variously reads like a journey of scientific discovery, a personal memoir, and a literary episode of Ripley’s Believe It or Not.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review)“A graceful hybrid of a book that’s half research treatise and half memoir.”–Entertainment Weekly (Editor’s Choice)From the Hardcover edition.