The Beauty in Breaking

A Memoir

By: Michele Harper

Narrated by: Nicole Lewis

The New York Times best seller

"Riveting, heartbreaking, sometimes difficult, always inspiring." (The New York Times Book Review)

“An incredibly moving memoir about what it means to be a doctor.”—Ellen Pompeo

As seen/heard on Fresh Air, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, Weekend Edition, and more

An emergency room physician explores how a life of service to others taught her how to heal herself.

Michele Harper is a female African-American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. Brought up in Washington, DC, in a complicated family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told her he couldn't move with her. Her marriage at an end, Harper began her new life in a new city, in a new job, as a newly single woman.

In the ensuing years, as Harper learned to become an effective ER physician, bringing insight and empathy to every patient encounter, she came to understand that each of us is broken—physically, emotionally, psychically. How we recognize those breaks, how we try to mend them, and where we go from there are all crucial parts of the healing process.

The Beauty in Breaking is the poignant true story of Harper's journey toward self-healing. Each of the patients Harper writes about taught her something important about recuperation and recovery. How to let go of fear even when the future is murky: how to tell the truth when it's simpler to overlook it. How to understand that compassion isn't the same as justice. As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats as they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past as we draw support from the present.

In this hopeful, moving, and beautiful audiobook, she passes along the precious, necessary lessons that she has learned as a daughter, a woman, and a physician.

©2020 Michele Harper (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Riveting, heartbreaking, sometimes difficult, always inspiring.”—The New York Times Book Review

“The Beauty in Breaking takes us into the life in an emergency room—the drama, the adrenaline, the emotion—with such immediacy that I could not help but be completely enthralled by the individual stories of the patients that Michele Harper treats. But this powerful, poignant page-turner of a book also tells a much larger and universal story about how healing actually happens, not just for broken bodies but for broken hearts and souls. In sharing the stories of her patients and her own life, Harper shows us that that healing begins only after we are broken open ourselves. And she shows us with hopeful, heartbreaking clarity that it comes from healing each other.”—Kerry Egan, author of On Living

“The Beauty in Breaking is a compelling page-turner about how Dr. Michele Harper took a broken childhood and wove herself into a strong, honest, compassionate doctor. A must read.”—Louann Brizendine, MD, author of The Female Brain

I was expecting more...

I really want to like this book. I loved the title and description promised something profound and interesting. I tried so hard and I really gave it a shot, listening to the entire book. And I liked Michelle. She is someone I would enjoy meeting and chatting over a cup of coffee. She is articulate and well spoken.

It seems like she was trying to go for the eat pray love scene. This was her own meditation and her own message as of course this is her own story. Unfortunately, there was nothing new or enlightening here. I listened to it from start to finish in a few days, it was an easy listen to me. But there was nothing new here. I was left disappointed.

This book resonated with me!

The Beauty in Breaking is a memoir of a female African-American ER doctor who was raised in an abusive home and overcame trauma and hardships throughout her life. I loved the author’s perspective on finding balance and healing in a world filled with suffering. I felt a kinship with Dr. Harper as I had thought about becoming a doctor when I was young, but a traumatic loss derailed my plans and I spent a good part of my young adult life seeking understanding and meaning in the events that had unfolded in my life. Michelle Palmer has also clearly done a lot of self work, using yoga, meditative practice, and general self-care to move through her days with love and compassion for others. I loved her stories of life in the ER as they showed that empathy helps us humans to heal. She is a graceful writer and a special soul. Well-written and well-told, I doubt that you will regret hearing her story.

Great stories bring inspiration

I loved the narrator and the passion with which she shared her experiences. The stories were insightful and hopeful. Many thanks for her storytelling gift.

Fantastic!!

I am a mere 2 chapters in and can’t wait to hear Dr. Harper’s full story unfold. I happened to heard about this book on NPR, a memoir of an ER physician. And a woman, no less! Then to find out she is a black woman—what a rare gem, especially in the field of medicine. As a female Pediatrician, I crave life stories of my colleagues as I know they are likely to be very rich and layered, not just in patient encounters but also in how that person arrived to medicine. I am moved by her story, the suffering she survived, the rawness as she details the darkest chapters of her life. The narration is great. I know this will be a book I send/recommend to my girlfriends & colleagues, especially those in medicine.

Beautifully written

This book made you think about your life, the pause and the little things that we take for granted. I love this book and I will probably read it again. And I most definitely will share it.

Self congratulatory

I feel this author left many levels of self realization out in what was supposed to be a book on self realization. I feel more could have been uncovered

Beautifully written

The stories written about in this book are told with not only elegance but with deep caring. It truly gave a glimpse of what medical professionals face on a daily basis. It also told the reader about a personal journey for consciousness, peace, and truth. I would recommend this book for everyone. I finished in two afternoons. I could not pry myself away. Hope more follow. What a great author and storyteller

A wonderful story about loving yourself & humanity

This isn't the typical story about love and loss, complete with anecdotes. It's a story that says projecting love, receiving, love, and bearing witness to the oddity of life is all a blessing.

A full life cycle in stories

A full life cycle in stories. From compartmentalization to love of life and self.

A gift to the field of medicine

Dr. Michele Harper eloquently and brilliantly takes readers on a journey of her experiences as a Black female doctor in a predominantly white male industry.

I love how she begins with her own story from childhood. She takes the opportunity to share her truth with readers so that we can have a better sense of the context for her work as an emergency room physician. Harper doesn’t “harp” on one part of her life for too long; this book has a clear direction and purpose in which Harper never strays from.

Throughout her musings of work with a diverse range of patients with an even broader range of diverse needs, I could feel Harper’s expertise and heart in every interaction. This is such an important piece for readers because oftentimes doctors can appear to be robotic, having to put feelings aside in order to do the work of offering patients a high level of care. Harper proves that physicians can do both - be the experts and the comfort!

Kudos to Dr. Harper and her work with Veterans!!!!