Podcast Summary: New Books Network — Jonathan Gleason, "Field Guide to Falling Ill" (Yale UP, 2026)
Host: Emily Dufton
Guest: Jonathan Gleason
Date: January 27, 2026
Book Discussed: Field Guide to Falling Ill (Yale University Press, 2026)
Episode Overview
This episode features author, writer, and medical interpreter Jonathan Gleason, discussing his debut essay collection Field Guide to Falling Ill. Gleason and host Emily Dufton explore the book’s wide-ranging essays on medicine, illness, drugs, addiction, recovery, and the deeply human experiences of navigating both personal crises and systemic medical structures. The conversation covers Gleason’s inspirations, research, and the blending of personal memoir with reportage and history, with special attention to queer themes, the opioid crisis in Ohio, and lessons from the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Main Discussion Points and Insights
Rationale Behind the Book's Title and Form
-
"Why a Field Guide?"
- Inspired partly by Rebecca Solnit’s Field Guide to Getting Lost.
- Gleason valued the expansive, almost tactile approach of a field guide, capturing how people look for understanding in unpredictable human experiences — not only in nature but in the “wilds” of medicine, politics, and culture.
- Quote:
“The landscape of the wild isn't necessarily the literal natural world, but it is medicine in relationship to other areas, other fields, politics, culture, the way history has influenced these things.”
— Jonathan Gleason [03:33]
-
Why Essays? Chosen Topics
- Initially intended to enter medicine as a doctor, but personal experiences redirected him to writing and examining medicine from a broader perspective.
- Influenced by stories from personal life, such as his mother’s heart attack, his work as a lifeguard, and stories from the communities he moved through, Gleason found the essay to be "the form that chose me" [05:27].
- Quote:
“I kept encountering stories, or having experiences that intersected with medicine in one way or the other … It just kept calling to me.”
— Jonathan Gleason [05:27]
Research & Writing: Bringing History to Life
- Deep archival research is a hallmark of Gleason’s essays:
- Example: In "A Difficult Man," Gleason listened to hours of phone conversations between two prominent AIDS activists—Michael Cowan and Dr. Joseph Sonnabend—to capture not just the factual history of AIDS medication (notably, AZT), but the lived experiences between the two men.
- Finding human detail was often more challenging than anticipated. Gleason’s persistence led him to audio recordings that brought the subjects’ relationships and ideas to life in a way documents could not.
- Quote:
"I got access to this Dropbox with just hours and hours of what seems like everything Michael Cowan ever recorded … and that really brought the essay to life."
— Jonathan Gleason [16:30]
Key Essays and Core Themes
Drugs, Pharmacology, and the Context of HIV/AIDS
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"A Difficult Man" (AZT):
- Details the promise and pitfalls of AZT, one of the earliest antiretrovirals. Sonnabend, the essay’s focus, was complex—a vocal skeptic of AZT and proponent for patient-centered, pragmatic approaches to HIV/AIDS care.
- Shows how pharmaceutical products are deeply enmeshed in social, economic, and political realities.
-
"Gilead" (Truvada/PrEP):
- Explores advancements in HIV prevention with Truvada and reflects on the shifting cultural experience around HIV/AIDS from the crisis of the '80s/'90s to today, when medical advances have rendered the disease undetectable for many. These essays also address persistent barriers to access, especially for marginalized communities.
- Quote:
“Prep is kind of like a concept more than necessarily a drug ... But in other ways [PrEP and AZT] have a lot of similarities. Both of them made their manufacturers a lot of money. There are a lot of questions about access and getting these medications to the people who most need them.”
— Jonathan Gleason [19:37]
Addiction and the Opioid Crisis
- Essays: "Bitter Joy" and "No Harm"
- Through stories set in Ohio, Gleason examines first-hand and observed experiences of drug use, addiction, and the medicalization of drugs like fentanyl and opioids.
- He stresses drug effects do not follow social boundaries—addiction is not limited to area codes or socio-economic status.
- Quotes:
“We really made me aware of how some drugs get categorized as, like, dangerous and others get categorized as, like, medicine that’s useful. And of course, they kind of occupied both positions at the same time.”
— Jonathan Gleason [26:05]
Recovery: Personal, Medical, and Systemic
- Essays: "Field Guide to Falling Ill," "Exit Wounds"
- Focus on the long and complicated process of recovery, whether from a physical trauma (a dramatic blood clot and subsequent surgery) or the psychological aftermath of a traumatic event (witnessing a bus shooting).
- Key insight: The real story is rarely the “event” itself, but rather how recovery—fragmented, ongoing, and sometimes incomplete—shapes a life.
- Quote:
“The real story here was, yes, that event, but then the recovery that unspooled after it… Medicine is not about enormous heroic surgeries … but about this active care and just showing up day after day.”
— Jonathan Gleason [32:16–35:55]
The Medical Interpreter Experience
- Gleason describes his work as a Spanish-language medical interpreter at a free clinic:
- Gained Spanish fluency living in Santiago and through formal study.
- Describes the role as uniquely challenging: the hardest part is often the memory and translation of complex, subjective medical narratives.
- Quote:
“The hardest thing is always interpreting for the patients who come with a lot of very … unique subjective experiences… The memory can actually be the hardest thing.”
— Jonathan Gleason [37:05]
Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments
-
On the solitude of illness:
“The greatest punishment of sickness [is] solitude, which is not even threatened in hell.”
— Quoting John Donne, [42:50] -
On releasing the book:
“I feel great and accomplished and, you know, a little bit anxious and scared because suddenly this thing you have sort of total control over ... is going to go out in the world and be sort of at the mercy of people's, like, judgments and interpretations.”
— Jonathan Gleason [41:12] -
On the poem selected as epigraph:
“I liked this image of how Howard, as a diver with only an edge of fear, transforms it into grace… One of the biggest [themes] was fear: what it can do to us, but how we can also overcome it and turn it into a kind of grace.”
— Jonathan Gleason [46:14]
Timestamps for Key Segments
- [03:08] — The origin of the book’s format and title
- [05:18] — The essay form, personal inspiration, and choosing medicine as a theme
- [10:02] — Research process for "A Difficult Man" and archival discoveries
- [19:37] — The evolution from AZT to PrEP and the personal stakes of HIV
- [26:05] — Growing up amid the opioid crisis in Ohio; medical and social dimensions of drugs
- [32:16] — Essays on recovery from physical and mental trauma
- [37:05] — Medical interpreting: language, memory, and meaning
- [41:12] — How it feels to publish a first book
- [43:55] — Favorite essay in the book: "Blood in the Water"
- [45:26] — The significance of the epigraph from Mark Doty
Future Work & Where to Find Jonathan Gleason
- Gleason is researching a possible new book centered on influential queer doctors of the early 20th century—Hirschfeld, Alan Hart, and Sara Josephine Baker—and how their lived identities shaped both medicine and modern queer identity [48:02]
- Readers can find more at jonathangleason.com and subscribe to his substack, "Histories of Present Illness" [50:11]
Closing Thoughts
Gleason’s Field Guide to Falling Ill is a meticulously researched, lyrically woven collection that navigates the liminal space between sickness, recovery, and belonging. Whether parsing the fraught legacies of drugs like AZT and Truvada, recounting the opioid crisis from a personal vantage, or examining the small but profound acts of translation in medical care, the essays never lose sight of the individual human at the center. As Gleason articulates, the book aims to make readers feel "less alone, even in their sicknesses" [43:40].
Host’s Recommendation: The discussion is both personal and systemic, highly recommended for those interested in medicine, queer history, addiction, and the essay form.
Connect with Jonathan Gleason:
- Website: jonathangleason.com
- Substack: Histories of Present Illness