Love in the Time of Cholesterol

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY DEC 12, 2005

Ross, food critic at Canada's Globe and Mail, chronicles the prelude to and two years following her husband's heart attack and open heart surgery. She and Basil meet while working at a magazine, fall in love and marry. Yet it's the younger of the two (he's 39 and she's 46) who falls victim to heart disease, though he's in denial about the problem and brushes off his initial heart attack ("The pain was awful, but it's gone now," he tells Ross, and then hops in the shower). Though Basil is "an extremely private person," Ross writes with unabashed detail about her husband's health, dwelling on every hint and clue to his ultimate diagnosis: unstable angina, likely caused by an arterial blockage interfering with blood flow to the heart. As the couple deal with their frustrations with medical personnel and Basil's growing depression and anxiety, Ross remains a staunchly devoted wife. While the book humanizes the clinical aspects of heart disease, Ross's recipes (though enticing enough) lack nutritional stats and are not well connected to the narrative (the segue from surgery to Date and Walnut Loaf is one example). However, families coping with heart disease will no doubt find that the reassuring love tale of Basil and Cecily rings true.