Twilight

January 4, 1999
Described by the author as "an autobiography of my eyes," this engrossing meditation--which will be of particular interest to those with failing eyesight--reveals what sight means to him. Since he was diagnosed with macular degeneration in 1992, Grunwald (One Man's America), who was formerly editor-in-chief of Time magazine and the U.S. ambassador to Austria, has been learning how to live with serious visual impairment. Despite some laser surgery, the vision in both of his eyes has continued to deteriorate. Although Grunwald can still identify buildings, people and such natural events as sunrises, he now sees through a "half-veiled" haze and is no longer able to enjoy art museums or to recognize the faces of close friends. He reminisces about images that have been important to him, such as nursery wallpaper and particular colors, and the pleasure he has derived from looking at women's faces. As someone who has been a prodigious reader, Grunwald has had to make a radical readjustment: he listens to recorded books, dictates what he would have formerly written and enlists his wife to read to him on a daily basis. He has visited the Lighthouse in New York City in order to keep up with the latest visual aids and to discuss with a therapist the depression resulting from his vision loss. Although he now accepts his condition, he is not resigned to it: he has thus far refused to learn Braille even though such a skill would be useful to him, because he believes that it implies total blindness, a possibility he struggles against.

September 15, 1999
In 1992, Grunwald, author of One Man's America, former editor-in-chief of Time, and former U.S. ambassador to Austria, went for an eye examination and learned that he was going blind. He was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). One of the least understood eye diseases and not reliably identified until the 1970s, AMD afflicts an estimated 15 million Americans and is the most common cause of irreversible, mostly untreatable, vision loss. As Grunwald's outward view dimmed, he looked inward, reflecting on his life and the sense of loss he experienced as his vision failed. He writes about how things will never be the same for him as when he was fully sighted, but he explains how he has learned to cope with near-blindness. Grunwald concludes that in learning to live with the afflictions that make life difficult, we are actually experiencing living. We emerge stronger for having struggled and finally overcome the obstacles life presents. Grunwald's reflective meditation may help others put their lives in perspective. For public libraries.--James Swanton, Harlem Hosp. Lib., New York

Copyright 1999 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 1999
Grunwald's first book in retirement ("One Man's America: A Journalist's Search for the Heart of His Country," 1997) surveyed the world he covered--as copyboy, reporter, editor, and editor in chief of "Time"after coming to the U.S. from Austria in 1940. "Twilight" is at once a smaller and a more affecting narrative: the journalist's reflections on the fading of his personal light due to macular degeneration. Grunwald grasps the irony: that he, whose life has revolved around words, should be able to read only with difficulty and high-tech assistance. Grunwald's condition was diagnosed in 1992; he's had time to accept, reluctantly, the limitations he faces and to explore his disease and a range of related topics, from the history of medical treatment of the eye to the mythology surrounding that easily taken-for-granted organ. Thus "Twilight" is a personal narrative of an active person forced to accommodate a disabling condition, with facts about the condition and its treatment as well as discourse on the symbolic and cultural meanings of sight and insight. ((Reviewed November 1, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)