Rhythms: A Novel About the All-Consuming Commitment to Caring for a Dying Parent

LOS ANGELES, July 7, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Rhythms is a family drama centered around the death of the protagonist's elderly, frail mother.  The novel takes place over three days, but toggles back and forth in time to introduce the reader to the characters and their lives. The three days in the present show how all-consuming caring for an elderly parent can be - particularly when that parent resides in your home.

"The fear, disgust, and rawness of realizing that you have become your mother's mother intermingles with the realization that you don't really even know who she is, what has happened to her in her life, or most importantly, what secrets she is keeping - about herself, and therefore, everyone," says Dr. Francine Kaufman, author of Rhythms. 

The story is told through a medical lens. The protagonist is a doctor in every cell of her body, excited by research, but driven by the human interactions, the stories she is told by her patients, and the need to play detective to determine what is real from what is not. As Dr. Kaufman puts it, "My protagonist's job as a doctor is to find out everything about everyone, but she is unable to find out everything about her own family."

Rhythms is the story of a woman raised in a time when the world wanted her to believe she could do anything and everything. Only she could determine for herself at what sacrifice that had to be done - and cope with the angst of never feeling she could do enough. Rhythms is available on Amazon in paperback and ebook editions.

Dr. Francine Kaufman is perhaps best known for her critically-acclaimed nonfiction book Diabesity: The Obesity-Diabetes Epidemic That Threatens America - And What We Must Do to Stop It. (Bantam, 2005.)  

For more than 20 years, Dr. Kaufman has been one of America's foremost researchers into childhood diabetes. She is a director, volunteer faculty member and former head of the Center for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. In May 2009, Dr. Kaufman became chief medical officer and vice president of Global Diabetes for Medtronic, Inc. Dr. Kaufman is also distinguished emerita professor of Pediatrics and Communications at the Keck School of Medicine and the Annenberg School of Communications of the University of Southern California. Dr. Kaufman continues to see patients as an attending physician at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

Contact: Lee Schneider, [email protected]

SOURCE Dr. Francine Kaufman