Larissa MacFarquhar. (2015). Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help. Unabridged Books on Tape.

Larissa MacFarquhar. 2015. Strangers Drowning: Grappling With Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help. Books on Tape.

Larissa MacFarquhar, Strangers Drowning: Grappling With Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help. Books on Tape, 2015.

Larissa MacFarquhar. Strangers Drowning: Grappling With Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help. Unabridged Books on Tape, 2015.

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   • bioText: LARISSA MACFARQUHAR has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998. Her subjects have included John Ashbery, Barack Obama, and Noam Chomsky, among many others. Previously she was a senior editor at Lingua Franca and an advisory editor at The Paris Review. MacFarquhar lives in New York.
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   • bioText: LARISSA MACFARQUHAR has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998. Her subjects have included John Ashbery, Barack Obama, and Noam Chomsky, among many others. Previously she was a senior editor at Lingua Franca and an advisory editor at The Paris Review. MacFarquhar lives in New York.
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2015-09-29T00:00:00-04:00

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Strangers Drowning

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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

1. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content: MacFarquhar, a staff writer for the NEW YORKER, narrates her book with an erudite yet conversational tone that may leave listeners feeling like they've attended a lecture rather than listened to an audiobook. The focus of her study is the phenomenon of radical humanitarians whom MacFarquhar refers to as "do-gooders." No ordinary "nice guys," these people forsake the well-being of their own loved ones in order to achieve true altruism--and that makes the rest of us nervous. Given the book's thesis of far-reaching kindness and its effect on humanity, MacFarquhar's narration might seem reserved. However, her tone is affable enough, making this an insightful listen. R.A. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
2. • premium: True
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   • content:

     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.

3. • premium: True
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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.

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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...

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