Tracy Kidder

This was, as all of Tracy Kidder's work, very good. A young man, Deo, from Burundi escapes his war torn country and comes to America. He lives in Central Park for awhile and through sheer persistence, luck and intelligence ends up in med school. He meets Paul Farmer from Tracy Kidder's previous book Mountains Beyond Mountains and becomes involved in Partners for Health.
There are some very endearing stories of the immigrant experience tucked into a lot of tragic ones. One story was how Deo learned that you could bargain with the men who would fix the pay phones for immigrants so that they could call home. The first time he uses it it's $5 but sometimes he can bargain them down to $3. After learning that Deo goes down to the subway station and tries to bargain with the subway worker for the tokens. It doesn't work.
My only quibble about this book is that Tracy Kidder is so far away from this young man in culture, upbringing, economic status....everything, that all he can do is stand and marvel at him. Deo is still a mystery at the end. We get the story through the eyes of a 63 year old white intellectual who picks out the important bits for his story, it is not through Deo's eyes. But of course Deo probably can't write half as well as Tracy Kidder so I suppose I should not complain.