O’Rourke boldly investigates the origin of her ills and possible cures. More crucially, she probes the cultural, psychological, and medical experiences of people with poorly understood or immune-mediated illnesses ... Refreshingly, Invisible Kingdom avoids battle analogies and a redemptive narrative arc ... O’Rourke’s telling is an essential one ... One of the book’s most riveting themes is how O’Rourke grapples with her identity as a sick person ... Invisible Kingdom couldn’t be more timely.
... a profound, sometimes lyrical, deeply moving portrayal of a vague constellation of illnesses ... She steers ably between the Scylla of cynicism and the Charybdis of romanticism, achieving an authentically original voice and, perhaps more startlingly, an authentically original perspective. A poet by choice and an interpreter of medical doctrine by necessity, she brings an elegant discipline to her description of a horrific decade lost to overdetermined symptoms that were misdiagnosed or dismissed as hypochondria. O’Rourke is not afraid to plumb the depth of her affliction; there are no niceties about starving children in the developing world who have it worse, though she does nod to less advantaged populations for whom conditions such as hers invite medical neglect and occasion bankruptcy. The book reads in part like a good mystery: She alludes to being better from the start, but we are constantly guessing which doctor or intervention made the decisive difference ... The book is not only a memoir of her illness, but also a document of years of research, some of it for this book, but much of it simply to preserve her sanity ... Her book has very little celebration in it, but it is a triumphant document of her refusal to be unseen, her ongoing dedication to cogency ... O’Rourke exposes the ways illness coincides with time to undermine identity ... Her book can be humorless to the point of self-pity, and sometimes this becomes tiresome; even the dying can find grace in some levity sprinkled through their narratives of decay. Indeed, hilarity is often the tool by which intimacy with the reader is achieved. But O’Rourke seems to be above such pandering. What she endured wasn’t funny; it is the occasion neither of wit nor of exuberance. For all its visceral force, her prose is literal, urgent, packed into the tight container of a single book about multiple sicknesses and disappointments and losses. In this era when we understand so much, we still fall short on chronic illness, autoimmune disorders, disruptions of the microbiome, the lasting effects of Lyme, long Covid and a variety of other such complaints. She refuses to sugarcoat the reality she has endured ... The book will be helpful to people in O’Rourke’s position: those who are suffering with confusing, unexplained illnesses. It is likewise a commentary on medicine as it exists today, puncturing our fantasy that diagnosticians can reliably make clear diagnoses, that the course of treatment upon diagnosis is usually clear and specific, that medicine is straightforward and that bodily ills can be targeted. O’Rourke is not blithely holistic in the New Agey, potpourri way of so much amateur writing about illness. But she does entertain the idea that there is insight beyond what is delivered by the men in white coats who populate the corridors of American hospitals, and then chaos beyond that insight. While her full diagnosis is never clear, her writing consistently is.
The Invisible Kingdom is thus not a straightforward accountcharting the usual stages fromdisease onset to medical intervention to ultimate recovery—the hallmarks of many illness narratives ... The Invisible Kingdom, like chronic illness itself, doesn’t end in a cure and doesn’t offer magic bullets for those who are suffering. What it does provide, powerfully, is a reminder to 'those of us at the edge of medical knowledge' that 'we live in the gap together' ... She provides an account that many will be able to relate to—a ray of light into those isolated cocoons of darkness that, at one time or another, may afflict us all.
At times, I wondered if [O'Rourke] ought to have assembled her story into such a clear, cohesive form; why not mimic the density and swirl of a decade spent in clueless flu-like miasma? O’Rourke is a devoted chronicler of each month spent in her corporeal purgatory, listing each new symptom and reliving every ache. I craved more mess, less linearity. But then again, who needs that? Sick people are befuddled enough and well people don’t need any more reasons to ignore them ... The book’s most significant feat is to be maddening without ever resorting to vitriol. If you didn’t already loathe the American healthcare system (a term that wrongly implies its disparate parts are connected), you will after reading The Invisible Kingdom ... While O’Rourke never lets on that she’s furious — perhaps fury requires more spunk than the perpetually exhausted can muster — she is meticulous about assigning blame to the negligent ... As a memoir The Invisible Kingdom can sometimes sink under its own misery, and as a close-up on autoimune diseases it wades too far into the cellular. But as a cultural history of “one of the most powerful contemporary Western delusions: namely, the idea that we can control the outcomes of our lives,” it’s profound and almost soothing. Medicine has conquered far less of the human body than it would ever let on ... Fellow sufferers will see The Invisible Kingdom as a helping hand in the dark.
O’Rourke is not content with simply explaining what it’s like to be ill, though she does that very well. Instead, she deftly weaves scientific explanations of autoimmune illnesses and the broader problems of American medicine into a personal narrative of her search for answers ... O’Rourke refuses to give the reader trite reassurances that the "wisdom" gained from her experience with chronic illness was somehow worth it ... Perhaps its most valuable contribution is the way it articulates the loneliness and frustration of having symptoms that superficially resemble the pains and pressures of contemporary life in the United States while being much more severe.
O’Rourke examines her own experience with a lucid but compassionate lens, and she brings that same mix of analysis and compassion to the book’s reporting. It’s a delicate balancing act to write about a long journey of misery without being tedious or repetitive. She pulls it off by adding lyrical imagery and the words of other writers...to her descriptions of suffering, the peculiar treatments she found herself undergoing, and the effect her quest for healing had on her marriage. And yes, the book reaches a happy, though not uncomplicated, ending ... While it’s especially useful for those who have personally encountered chronic illness, The Invisible Kingdom will add to everyone’s understanding of disease and health. Ultimately it offers a fresh image of what good medicine could look like: doctors understanding each patient as a whole person, not just as a collection of parts.
Personal and deeply moving ... This work may serve as an affirmation that people living with chronic illness are not alone. For those close to one with chronic illness or who would like to learn more, this firsthand account is both moving and educational.
With a poet’s sensibility, journalist’s rigor, and patient’s personal investment, O’Rourke sheds light on the physical and mental toll of having a mysterious chronic illness ... O’Rourke shirks a tidy recovery story and instead mines her abjection, astonishment, and vulnerability...to offer a stunningly raw account of living with the existential complexities of a sickness that 'never fully resolves.' Readers will be left in awe.
The author constructs that story from building blocks of personal narrative and science journalism, with deep dives into the technicalities of the immune system and the microbiome. The personal sections are engaging and well written ... Though O'Rourke roundly rejects the notion that illness and suffering are somehow balanced by spiritual benefits, her conclusion offers hope ... Emotionally compelling and intellectually rich, particularly for those with a personal connection to the issue.
