Beverly Hurwitz, a retired Park City physician, has a story to tell.
“The Tale of the Transplanted Heart” is the former Parkite’s fifth novel, and like the ones that have come before, it has roots in the medical field.
“My books are like precautionary tales in some ways,” she said. “They rail against the corporate takeover of healthcare and, in this one, the political takeover of laboratory monitoring.”
“The Tale of the Transplanted Heart,” which is available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle, is a medical mystery and thriller about Darius Amari, a research scientist obsessed with conquering deadly viruses through his study of bats.
“I don’t watch much TV, but I watch a lot of animal videos,” said Hurwitz, who now lives in Eden with her husband Kenneth, also a retired physician. “I (visit) thedodo.com and geobeats.com, and they have all of these delightful stories about remarkable experiences people have with animals. I remember seeing some videos about bats, and they changed my perspective on those animals.”
So, Hurwitz decided to insert a side-story regarding these oft-misunderstood, flying creatures of the night.
“In fact, the characters in the book connect over their love of the superhero known as Batman,” she said with a laugh.
Amari’s storyline also examines the darker side of research that includes uninformed lab regulations, accidents, cutthroat competition for funding, the compulsive drive to produce the next blockbuster vaccine and the weaponization of viruses and other biological pathogens.
“I’ve had a longtime interest in immunology, specifically vaccine medicine, because my original medical career was pediatrics, which is all about vaccinating,” Hurwitz said. “Vaccines used to come about through rigid, prolonged testings, but with new technologies, they are being brought out much faster, without that kind of testing. So the potential for long-term issues are not really known. And even the short-term issues are hard to get a handle on because the data gets suppressed by pharmaceutical manufacturers. So my professional interest in fibrology and vaccines got woven into this story.”
“The Tale of the Transplanted Heart” also explores the concept of cellular memory, which theorizes that memories can be stored in cells other than the ones found in the brain, she said.
“I had always been curious about this, and just before I started writing the novel, I read about how DNA could possibly be transferred when people get transfusions,” Hurwitz said. “I’ve had a lot of IVIg (intravenous immunoglobulin) infusions for an auto-immune condition, and the plasma for the IVIg comes from the cells of thousands of people.”
Hurwitz also has first-hand experience with the concept of cellular memory.
“Decades ago, I worked with a patient who underwent a liver transplant and became a totally different person,” she said. “At the time, cellular memory wasn’t a concept. There were anecdotal reports here and there but no serious discussion available.”
Then Hurwitz read the late Claire Sylvia’s 1997 memoir, “A Change of Heart,” which documented her development of mannerisms and even cravings after undergoing a transplant of a heart and lungs that once belonged to a teenaged boy who died in a motorcycle accident.
“Claire found that the donor had the characteristics that she had begun to take on,” she said.
Last February, the University of Denver released a report on Hurwitz’s medical news wire showing an increase of cellular memory reporting.
“There is more evidence and data that shows that things can be transferred from donors to recipients,” she said. “It’s still very controversial, but since that article came out in February, I’ve seen more stories in the media of people who have this experience.”
Parts of “The Tale of the Transplanted Heart” have been locked in Hurtwitz’s vault for decades.
“I wasn’t really inspired to write it until a couple of things that I came across in my medical news readings,” she said.
One was the idea of cellular memory, and the other was the ongoing story of an illegal medical lab that was discovered in the late winter of 2022 in Reedley, California.
Authorities came upon the lab, which they deemed could be “a potential disaster for the city,” in a warehouse after someone had noticed a garden hose coming out of the building, according to Hurwitz.
“That’s turned into a very interesting story, except the media and government kind of distanced themselves from the lab,” she said.
To keep the discovery public, some of the city’s residents came together and published “The Known Unknown,” a graphic novel about the lab, and handed it out for free outside this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Hurwitz said.
“The comic book happened while I was getting ready to release my book, and that’s why it took me six months to edit, even though I was finished in January,” she said. “Every day I’d read something new, and I would adjust the story.”
Hurwitz said publishing books is the ultimate reward. In the past, she has also published two nonfiction works — “Park City Hiking Guide” and “Park City Walking Guide,” which are now second-edition printings.
“I don’t write to sell books,” she said. “I have a compulsion to write, and even though I have some presentations at book clubs, I don’t worry whether anybody reads them or not. Writing is just something that I like to do.”
Hurwitz’s interest in writing blossomed after she retired and worked eight years for federal and state judges, analyzing contested insurance cases.
“During that time, I was basically writing reports,” she said. “So when I didn’t have a professional reason to write, it became a hobby.”
For information about Dr. Beverly Hurwitz and her books, including “The Tale of the Transplanted Heart,” visit tinyurl.com/4ne27dvk and SurrogatePress.com.