Heartsounds: The Story of a Love and Loss

The national bestseller and undying testament of a wife’s love for her husband as he embarks on the fight of his life.

On a story assignment in France for the New York Times Magazine, Martha Weinman Lear has just escaped tourist-infested Cannes for a quiet pension in the hills behind the Riviera when she gets the call from New York. Her husband has suffered a massive heart attack and is in the hospital.

Harold Lear, a fifty-three-year-old urologist and leader in the field of human sexuality research, suddenly finds himself in the helpless role of the patient. Ripping into the Lears’ lives and marriage, Hal’s coronary disease sends them on a journey through New York City’s medical maze. With bittersweet poignancy, Lear chronicles her husband’s valiant efforts to combat his sickness as more heart attacks and devastating postsurgical complications befall him.

A stunning work of medical drama and journalism, Heartsounds is above all the gripping story of a passionate, enduring love.