What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas.
A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt twenty. But how do they weigh the needs of unknown children in distress against the needs of the children they already have?
Another couple founds a leprosy colony in the wilderness in India, living in huts with no walls, knowing that their two small children may contract leprosy or be eaten by panthers. The children survive. But what if they hadn’t? How would their parents’ risk have been judged?
A woman believes that if she spends money on herself, rather than donate it to buy life-saving medicine, then she’s responsible for the deaths that result. She lives on a fraction of her income, but wonders: when is compromise self-indulgence and when is it essential?
We honor such generosity and high ideals; but when we call people do-gooders there is skepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the literature, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture.
Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Moving and provocative, Strangers Drowning challenges us to think about what we value most, and why.
What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas.
A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt twenty. But how do they weigh the needs of unknown children in distress against the needs of the children they already have?
Another couple founds a leprosy colony in the wilderness in India, living in huts with no walls, knowing that their two small children may contract leprosy or be eaten by panthers. The children survive. But what if they hadn’t? How would their parents’ risk have been judged?
A woman believes that if she spends money on herself, rather than donate it to buy life-saving medicine, then she’s responsible for the deaths that result. She lives on a fraction of her income, but wonders: when is compromise self-indulgence and when is it essential?
We honor such generosity and high ideals; but when we call people do-gooders there is skepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the literature, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture.
Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Moving and provocative, Strangers Drowning challenges us to think about what we value most, and why.
Reviews-
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July 6, 2015
This gripping first book from New Yorker staff writer MacFarquhar is a scrupulous study of people selflessly devoted to helping others. In the introduction, she distinguishes between "heroes" (who help their families or communities in times of need) and "do-gooders" (who feel a moral obligation to help strangers, or other species), discussing why people invariably admire the former and don't always like or trust the latter. MacFarquhar goes on to profile various do-gooders: an animal-rights activist driven to give voice to the plight of chickens, a man who founded a leper colony in India at a time when coming into contact with lepers was unthinkable, and a woman who feels compelled to give everything she possibly can to organizations that will help the most people, among others. These singular biographies are threaded together with chapters examining the cultural history of how we view altruism, including the implications of Darwin's theory of natural selection, Freudian pathologizing of selflessness, the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the rise of the theory of codependency. MacFarquhar herself takes no stance for or against do-gooders, or about why they make the choices they do, but the book is no less engrossing and thought provoking for its lack of concrete answers. Agent: Sarah Chalfant, Wylie Agency. -
July 1, 2015
A New Yorker staff writer delves into the strange lives and curious mindsets of extreme altruists. In her debut book, MacFarquhar profiles a small, unusual collection of people who have sacrificed almost everything to help others. She calls them "do-gooders," but their morals are so acute that they can seem almost mad, like saints and martyrs. A trust-funder-turned-animal activist descends into homelessness in the name of his cause. A couple in Boston gives the vast majority of their earnings to charity but struggles with the idea of having children. A couple in Philadelphia adopts more than 20 special needs children despite the terrible cost to their own fragile psyches. A woman donates a kidney to a stranger, and her act inspires a terrible hostility from other strangers. A Buddhist priest in Japan counsels people who want to commit suicide only to have them turn on him in his hour of need. In between these profiles, MacFarquhar explores a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, religion, psychology, sociology, and literature. It's admirable that the book never descends into an opaque discussion of moral philosophy. As the author admits, "in the abstract, there are ideas about saints and perfection. Only actual lives convey fully and in a visceral way the beauty and cost of a certain kind of moral existence." The book is less a defense of sainthood than a portrait of people for whom the desire to do good often backfires, sometimes with horrible results. Yet MacFarquhar also discovers an intense compassion for these people whose lives she admires but cannot always understand. "It may be true that not everyone should be a do-gooder," the author writes. "But it is also true that these strange, hopeful, tough, idealistic, demanding, life-threatening, and relentless people, by their extravagant example, help keep those life-sustaining qualities alive." Fascinating and terrifying portraits of saints and ministers of grace.COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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November 30, 2015
New Yorker writer MacFarquhar brings an air of confidence and competence to the audio rendering of her debut title, which explores the lives of those known as do-gooders. As narrator, MacFarquhar seems most at ease in the portions of the book where her subjects engage in candid dialogue with friends, family, and one another; she portrays the give and take of these conversations in a natural and engaging manner. The best example involves Vermont natives Sue and Hector Badeau, whose deep religious faith led them to adopt more than 20 children with a host of special needs. MacFarquhar may not be a professional voice actor, but when she delves into the nitty-gritty of day-to-day struggles and sacrifices, she makes an emotional connection with her listening audience. A Penguin Press hardcover.
