cover image A Very Decided Preference: Life with Peter Medawar

A Very Decided Preference: Life with Peter Medawar

Jean Medawar, J. S. Medawar. W. W. Norton & Company, $19.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-393-02820-1

Survival was the ``very decided preference'' of British Nobel Prize-winning immunologist, writer and teacher Medawar who, in 1969, at 54, was crippled by the first of several cerebral hemorrhages. The respect for him expressed in this beautifully written account by his wife precludes mere pity, nor does she seek to idealize this already exceptional man. Along with recalling her husband's dogged efforts to recover lost mobility, vision and speech, and to resume an active life after each successive stroke, the author relates the couple's world travels, and celebrates with often humorous anecdotes their rich professional, family and social life in an inspiring chronicle. Peter Medawar died in 1987. Photos not seen by PW. (June)