Mimi Swartz - Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart

A fast-paced, utterly riveting tale of the decades of effort that have gone into developing an artificial heart. The characters, many of whom dedicated their lives to this quest, are captivating, and their rivalries are the stuff of legend.

Bethany McLean, coauthor of All the Devils Are Here and The Smartest Guys in the Room

A remarkable journey through the harrowing world of heart surgery, as a brilliantly gifted and eccentric team of doctors work to develop a complete artificial heart to save the thousands of patients a year whose hearts are failing.

Bryan Burrough, author of Public Enemies, The Big Rich, and Barbarians at the Gate

An exciting, propulsive, and at times surprisingly tender account of the swashbuckling surgeons and inventive geniuses who are working to achieve one of the greatest medical breakthroughsthe development of the artificial heart. Mimi Swartz has done an outstanding job and uncovered the human story behind the triumph of technology.

Jennet Conant, New York Times bestselling author of Tuxedo Park and 109 EastPalace

Who knew that the story of the artificial heart was such a rip-roaring one, with one larger-than-life character after another, and plot twists galore? In Ticker, Mimi Swartz has told that story with verve and elegance, and brought those characters to vivid life. A wonderful work of nonfiction by a wonderful nonfiction writer.

Joe Nocera, Bloomberg News columnist and author of Indentured: The Inside Story ofthe Rebellion Against the NCAA

The kids fell in love with him first. Craig Lewis lived three houses down, a tall, solitary beanpole of a man with a copper-colored golden retriever named Shogun. He looked to be in his late thirties, and Linda Sanders knew from neighborhood gossip that he had one marriage behind him, just like she did. Back then, Shogun seemed to be his constant companion. Craig had taught that dog to do just about anythingof course he could sit, stay, fetch, and hunt, but he also knew how to play hide-and-seek with even the canniest kid. That was why, as soon as Linda Sanders children heard Craigs pickup pull into his driveway in the early evenings, they were out the doorLeslie was eight and Eddie six, two towheads on the run, raising small clouds of dust as their feet slapped the parched summer grass. Dont wear out your welcome! Linda warned to the screen door they slammed behind them. The sky would turn dusky and the shadows grow long before shed give up waiting for their return and head down after them.

The last light of day was at her back, heating her neck and shoulders, and the hot, damp closeness of a Houston summer took her in its seasonal embrace. There were people who swore it always cooled off at night here, but Linda knew better. Shed lived all her life in this tattered north Houston neighborhood, and she knew what changed and what didnt, or couldnt.

Linda could see from the flattened grass that her kids had literally beaten a path to Craigs door. It was natural that theyd go looking for a man to replace the one whod left them. Craig was handy, that was for sure: when Eddie dragged his broken bike to his door, he fixed the chain, cleaning it up with WD40. He let Leslie draw in his old sketchbooks. If the kids were talking about the moon or stars, he would haul out his telescope and let them look through it at the night sky. Once, when Lindas air conditioner broke downthe worst thing that could happen in the middle of a Houston summerCraig came over and fixed it for her, no charge.

A slight woman of twenty-seven, Linda had a smile that was both knowing and tentative. Her thin brown hair fell lank below her shoulders. Like this streetsmall frame houses guarded by rusting cyclone fencesshe could have been pretty if she fixed herself up, but who had the money or the time? She had been divorced for several years and was barely making ends meet as a clerk at an auto parts store. She lived with the kids in a tired two-bedroom house she rented from her mom, its sunny yellow hue fading to a peaked sunrise. Home improvements were out of the question: Leslie and Eddie were always needing new shoes, school clothes, tetanus shots, whatever. Every day seemed like the one before it: get up, get the kids out the door to school, get them home, do homework, feed them dinner, then give them baths, put them to bed, and get up and do it all over again. She was in her late twenties, going on forty-five.

Maybe thats why she found Craigs place such a comfort. Her front yard could have been mistaken for a small daycare center, with the kids toys and bikes scattered all over the place; his was manicured and trimmed. Wanting to get out of the sun, she pushed his door open, something Craig had told her she was welcome to do.

Neat as a pin inside and out, she thought. Craig was a project manager for the cityhe had walked away from community college just shy of graduation because he didnt see the point, he had told her. The engineers with the big degrees started calling him for advice after his first few months on the job anyway. He was teaching Leslie to fold clotheshe towered over the little girl as they did that funny laundry waltz in the living room with the sheet getting smaller and smaller between them. Leslie was giggling, the corners of the bedsheet clutched between her stubby fingers. Linda looked around for Eddie, scanning the glossy wooden floor, the sofa still peppy and full from disuse, the walls lined with bookcases filled with volumes on engineering and medicine and oil field equipment. No sign of him.