LYNN CULLEN: THE WOMAN WITH THE CURE
About the Author
Lynn grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the fifth girl in a family of seven children. She learned to love history combined with traveling while visiting historic sites across the U.S. on annual family camping trips. She attended Indiana University in Bloomington and Fort Wayne, and took writing classes with Tom McHaney at Georgia State.
Lynn Cullen is the bestselling author of historical novels The Sisters of Summit Avenue, Twain’s End, Mrs. Poe, Reign of Madness, and I Am Rembrandt’s Daughter.
She wrote children’s books as her three daughters were growing up, while working in a pediatric office, and later, on the editorial staff of a psychoanalytic journal at Emory University.
She now lives in Atlanta with her husband, their dog, and two unscrupulous cats.
Lynn Cullen often writes about overlooked or misunderstood historical figures. Much like an art restorer, she conducts meticulous research of her subject matter and the time period in which she lived, often visiting the places where her protagonists worked and played. Only then does Lynn begin to carefully remove the layers of varnish and patina from each character’s story, restoring her through the literary imagination. Yes, all of Lynn’s books are fiction. But as any writer of historical fiction will tell you, the most bizarre aspects of any novel are often the stories most grounded in truth
About the Book
In 1940s and ’50s America, polio is as dreaded as the atomic bomb. No one’s life is untouched by this disease that kills or paralyzes its victims, particularly children. Outbreaks of the virus across the country regularly put American cities in lockdown. Some of the world’s best minds are engaged in the race to find a vaccine. The man who succeeds will be a god.
But Dorothy Horstmann is not focused on beating her colleagues to the vaccine. She just wants the world to have a cure. Applying the same determination that lifted her from a humble background as the daughter of immigrants, to becoming a doctor –often the only woman in the room—she hunts down the monster where it lurks: in the blood.
This discovery of hers, and an error by a competitor, catapults her closest colleague to a lead in the race. When his chance to win comes on a worldwide scale, she is asked to sink or validate his vaccine—and to decide what is forgivable, and how much should be sacrificed, in pursuit of the cure.
About the Event
The event took place at the Roswell Library on 04/22/23 at 2 p.m.
The program was recorded and you can view the presentation in its entirety by clicking here.
