The Empathy Exams Afterparty | 📚 Book Talk

Some essays slapped, some I skimmed—let’s unpack the highs, lows, and why it still sparked big questions. Good, Not Great (But Worth Talking About)

Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams is one of those essay collections that gets talked about a lot. But here’s the thing: for me, it was good—not great. Some chapters gripped me hard (the opening empathy exam, the Barkley Marathons, that brutal last essay on women’s pain), while others… let’s just say my eyes skimmed faster than my brain.

In this Afterparty, I dig into:

• 🎭 The wild idea of doctors taking an empathy exam with actors playing patients.
• 🦠 The long, gross Morgellons essay (I lost my appetite on that one).
• 🏃 The grit and madness of the Barkley Marathons chapter.
• 🩸 The cutting finale on how women’s pain and blood (Carrie, anyone?) get represented in our culture.

What I kept circling back to was this question: when does empathy become real, and when is it just a performance? And what happens when writing itself turns lived pain into spectacle?

Some parts of this book are unforgettable, others forgettable—but that mix is exactly why I want to talk about it with you.

👉 What chapters stuck with you? Did you skim some too? And how did that Carrie essay land for you? Drop your thoughts below—let’s make this a proper Afterparty.

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