Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher

“Spirited and breezily provocative… White’s unorthodox quest made national news several times over the course of his long career, but in Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher, Brandy Schillace finally gives it the thoughtful book-length treatment it deserves.”
— The Washington Post
“Engrossing. Schillace is a first-rate historian with the perceptive eye of a storyteller.”
— Lindsey Fitzharris, New York Times bestselling author of The Butchering Art
“A rollicking, irresistible tale of doctors playing God, science facing off with ideology, and fate being sorely tempted at every turn.”
— Robert Kolker, New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road
“Well-researched. Well-written. Suspenseful. Best of all, the book is fascinating.”
— The Wall Street Journal
“Brandy Schillace has taken a most bizarre and ethically complex episode in the history of medicine and crafted from it a narrative that is nuanced, informed, and almost impossible to stop reading. I swear to you, if you have a brain inside your head (or anywhere else), you will find this book fascinating.”
— Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff
“Brilliant, disturbing, and fascinating. A true-life story even more dark and twisted than the X-Files case it inspired.”
— Frank Spotnitz, Golden Globe-winning writer and producer of The X-Files
“Lively and sometimes horrifying… A fascinating and disturbing look at the complicated world of medical research and one of its most extreme practitioners.”
— The Columbus Dispatch
“A riveting, heartfelt page-turner. Schillace reveals Dr. Robert White in all his strange, complicated brilliance: a pious, ambitious, egotistical innovator who was willing to challenge almost any norm—including the definition of life itself—in his quest to develop a mind-bending and potentially world-changing new surgical procedure.”
— Luke Dittrich, New York Times bestselling author of Patient H.M.
“Delightfully macabre.”
— The New York Times
“I cannot recommend this book highly enough.”
— Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes
“Masterful. A probing and provocative portrait.”
— Science

Brandy Schillace is a historian of medicine and the critically acclaimed author of Death’s Summer Coat: What Death and Dying Teach Us About Life and Living and Clockwork Futures: The Science of Steampunk. The host of the Peculiar Book Club, a livestream community for authors and their readers, she has appeared on the Travel Channel’s Mysteries at the Museum, NPR’s Here and Now, and FOX’s American Built. Dr. Schillace is a 2018 winner of the Arthur P. Sloan Science Foundation award and serves as editor-in-chief of BMJ’s Medical Humanities Journal.

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