The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist by Michael Downs - Saturday, November 3

In The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist, novelist Michael Downs takes the reader through 19th-century New England to Paris and back again, exploring the sacrifices and struggles of the Connecticut man widely credited with discovering anesthesia. The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist is a love story but also a story of what love can't redeem: of narcotic dreams and waking insanity; of pain's destruction and what pains can never be eased. It’s a story that resonates with our contemporary struggles involving pain and the substances that numb it.Michael Downs will be speaking about this book on Saturday, November 3 at 2 pm in the library's program room. The Los Angeles Review of Books calls the novel “hypnotic” and says, “Downs tells a fascinating story in skilled, often elegant prose, and he treats all his characters with great sympathy.” Learn more about the book and the author at www.michael-downs.net