I wouldn’t be surprised if half of Ann Arbor wrote blog posts this week with the same title. It’s that time of year again when our “community read” program is in full swing. This year the book is Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World, by Tracy Kidder. And last Thursday the whole town turned out in droves to hear Mr. Kidder give a lecture at the community college. Oh how I love Ann Arbor!

Anyway, in case you aren’t familiar with the work of Paul Farmer, he’s a doctor who dedicated his life — and we are talking about extreme personal hardship and sacrifice — to providing decent health care to poor people. His main focus has been helping the people of Haiti, but he has also worked in Peru, Russia, and other places. His work ranges from treating individual patients to fundraising to lobbying governments and NGOs like the World Health Organization. For example, he discovered that the WHO’s policy regarding the treatment of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis was actually making the problem worse. He not only managed to change the protocol but he also got the drug companies to lower the drug prices by ninety percent. Ninety percent! If that was all he did, it would still be amazing. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. (For details, read the book!)

Dr. Farmer’s work is fascinating. And even more fascinating is Dr. Farmer, the person. He has boundless energy. His IQ is off the charts. And he doesn’t let anyone off the hook. “WLs [White Liberals] think all the world’s problems can be fixed without any cost to themselves,” he says. “We don’t believe that. There’s a lot to be said for sacrifice, remorse, even pity. It’s what separates us from the roaches.”

I admit it. I’m one of those stupid complacent lazy-ass WLs who thinks (would like to think) (used to think) the world’s problems can be fixed without any cost to me personally. And Dr. Farmer’s very existence is a rebuke. My copy of the book came with “reader’s circle” discussion questions at the back. One of them says, “Kidder has never before written a book in which he made himself a character. Can you think of some of the reasons he might have had for doing this in Mountains Beyond Mountains?” Yes, of course. It’s because Kidder also feels like a stupid complacent lazy-ass WL in comparison with Dr. Farmer. At one point, for example, Kidder comments, “This view of drowned farmland, the result of a dam that had made his patients some of the poorest of the poor, was a lens on the world. His lens. Look through it and you’d begin to see all the world’s impoverished in their billions and the many linked causes of their misery. In any case, he seemed to think I knew exactly what he meant, and I realized, with some irritation, that I didn’t dare say anything just then, for fear of disappointing him.” Kidder allows the reader to identify with him and not feel quite so bad about not being a hero, because Kidder isn’t one either.

Kidder talked about this quite a bit during his lecture. He said that when he gave the first draft to his editor, they spent a lot of time discussing what the editor called “the problem of goodness” — how to write about this man without totally alienating the reader. I think he did an amazingly good job of it. By putting himself in the story, by discussing other people’s reactions to Dr. Farmer, by making “the problem of goodness” one of the major themes of the book, well… I still feel rebuked, but honestly? In a good way. This book is a call to action. And, incidentally, a great read.

Visit here if you want to know more about Dr. Farmer’s work or make a donation.