Anthony Fauci has been a hero to me ever since I first saw him on television and realized I’d read about him, too. So I’ve been  eyeballing his book, “On Call,” for the last few months.  He both wrote and narrated the book so although he’s not a professional reader I’m enjoying his voice even if he’s not a great reader.  It’s him! 

On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service
By: Anthony Fauci M.D. 2024
Read by 19h and 12m
Rating:   8 / Autobiography

This is an autobiography and writing a first draft was an ongoing project from his last years of college.  If you’re looking for a shorter or more focused work this might not be what you want to spend time on.  Properly, an autobiography should be researched and sourced as though it were a biography (yes, of yourself) because, who knows, you might have misheard your grandmother.  And you do want the autobiography to get it right.  Biographies are nonfiction.  Memoirs are somewhere between those two and, tend to be shorter and more focused.  Besides, they’re what the author *remembers* – not what his whole life has been.  Both contain what the author decides should be included – It’s not really allowed to add make-believe things (like meeting the queen or something) but you can leave out whatever you want.  

 I was disappointed he went on and on, sometimes in excruciating detail, about his AIDS work,  but for  most of his career that’s what he did.  I was lightly familiar with his AIDS work (read several books) so that wasn’t too much of a waste; actually, I learned a LOT.  

Ahat I wanted, you could say expected, was some good information and insight on the Covid-19 problems. Covid wasn’t an issue t until 2019 and Fauci was 79 years old!  The Covid issues start at about 80% of the way through the book!  They’re worth it though and I’m glad I didn’t skip over to them.   

The rest of the book is a chronological telling of his career in medicine and public service. There’s a wee bit about his childhood, growing up, and then his wife and daughters and I think he does well in their characters.  But it was his medical career which kept him occupied studying and treating  infectious diseases especially when they became epidemics and pandemics.  Highlighted are HIV/AIDS (which changed his life), Swine Flu, Bird Flu, Ebola, and so on.  He started receiving hate mail with the AIDS issue and it didn’t let up until Coronavirus-19.   I remember most of the ones mentioned, but Fauci seems to have been at the center from the H.B. Bush presidency through that of Donald Trump, that’s 5 presidents.    

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