Audiobooks narrated by Lydia Mackay

Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart

It wasn't supposed to be this hard. If America could send a man to the moon, shouldn't the best surgeons in the world be able to build an artificial heart? In Ticker, Texas Monthly executive editor and two time National Magazine Award winner Mimi Swartz shows just how complex and difficult it can be to replicate one of nature's greatest creations. Part investigative journalism, part medical mystery, Ticker is a dazzling story of modern innovation, recounting fifty years of false starts, abysmal failures and miraculous triumphs, as experienced by one the world's foremost heart surgeons, O.H. "Bud" Frazier, who has given his life to saving the un-savable. His journey takes him from a small town in west Texas to one of the country's most prestigious medical institutions, The Texas Heart Institute, from the halls of Congress to the animal laboratories where calves are fitted with new heart designs. The roadblocks to success -medical setbacks, technological shortcomings, government regulations - are immense. Still, Bud and his associates persist, finding inspiration in the unlikeliest of places. A field beside the Nile irrigated by an Archimedes screw. A hardware store in Brisbane, Australia. A seedy bar on the wrong side of Houston. Until post WWII, heart surgery did not exist. Ticker provides a riveting history of the pioneers who gave their all to the courageous process of cutting into the only organ humans cannot live without. Heart surgeons Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley, whose feud dominated the dramatic beginnings of heart surgery. Christian Barnaard, who changed the world overnight by performing the first heart transplant. Inventor Robert Jarvik, whose artificial heart made patient Barney Clark a worldwide symbol of both the brilliant promise of technology and the devastating evils of experimentation run amuck. Rich in supporting players, Ticker introduces us to Bud's brilliant colleagues in his quixotic quest to develop an artificial heart: Billy Cohn, the heart surgeon and inventor who devotes his spare time to the pursuit of magic and music; Daniel Timms, the Brisbane biomedical engineer whose design of a lightweight, pulseless heart with but a single moving part offers a new way forward. And, as government money dries up, the unlikeliest of backers, Houston's furniture king, Mattress Mack. In a sweeping narrative of one man's obsession, Swartz raises some of the hardest questions of the human condition. What are the tradeoffs of medical progress? What is the cost, in suffering and resources, of offering patients a few more months, or years of life? Must science do harm to do good? Ticker takes us on an unforgettable journey into the power and mystery of the human heart.

Mimi Swartz (Author), Lydia Mackay (Narrator)

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Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives

In partnership with Texas Monthly, Mimi Swartz's "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. Many Americans today feel they don't hold the reins to their own healthcare; for American women, healthcare is nothing less than a Trojan horse. With women's healthcare politicized more than ever, it's impossible not to wonder how we got to now. Mimi Swartz's "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives" is a vital snapshot of this history for fans of Hulu's adaption of The Handmaid's Tale or listeners of the podcast, "Pod Save America." Told with immense levity and grave understanding, this article - available for the first time as an audio program - details a turning point in women's health care legislation. In 2011, Texas's state legislature went as far as any body of government has gone before in restricting women's reproductive rights. The legislature passed a sonogram law - forcing women to have an invasive sonogram 24 hours before a scheduled abortion - and cut the family planning budget from $111.5 million to just $37.9 million. To explore this moment, Swartz dips into the nuances of Texas politics, from the gritty in-fighting of a one-party state to the fight between two of Texas's most powerful women: Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood and Nancy Brinker of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. What results is a portrait of a time and state that rings like a premonition for the future of the country.

Mimi Swartz (Author), Lydia Mackay (Narrator)

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Cops and Robbers

In partnership with Texas Monthly, Katy Vine's "Cops and Robbers" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. Law enforcement in Hidalgo County would joke that without the drug trade, half the business in the county would fail. Others would say of the region in South Texas that you'd be hard pressed to meet a local who didn't know a drug dealer. The sentiment of the local culture and economy relying on the drug trade would turn from harmless to hostile when the line between drug busters and drug dealers began to blur. In "Cops and Robbers," listeners are introduced to members of the Panama Unit, a group of young, eager sheriff's deputies and police officers tasked with drug busting along the active dealing border between Texas and Mexico. The unit was created by Guadalupe "Lupe" Treviño, a popular, charismatic sheriff looking to right the wrongs of his predecessor, who had been charged with extrotion and drug trafficking. Treviño placed his arrogant son in charge of the unit, a move that many questioned and one that would be the downfall of the sheriff's office. Katy Vine explores Southern Texas's fragile relationship with the drug trade and its border with Mexico through this larger than life story of what happened to some of Texas's finest when taking part in the drug trade became more worthwhile than stopping it.

KATY VINE (Author), Lydia Mackay (Narrator)

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Lost and Found

In partnership with Texas Monthly, Katy Vine's "Lost and Found" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. Katy Vine's "Lost and Found" is a thoughtful and uplifting look into a refugee community in the heart of Texas at a time when political sentiment surrounding refugees and immigration turned increasingly negative. Texas is known nationwide for accepting a high ratio of refugees admitted to the United States. Though most end up in Houston, the smaller city of Amarillo has become a harbor for new immigrants looking to start anew. One key part of the vital Amarillo refugee community is Evelyn Lyles, a woman in her 60s who volunteers her time to help families assimilate and learn the ways of their new homeland. Her help ranges from assisting new families with the myriad forms and paperwork required of them; rallying community support to pay for steep medical bills; or simply, serving as a friendly, generous neighbor. "Lost and Found" is a snapshot as life as a refugee, honing in on a few families, each with their own struggles and obstacles, their own dreams and hopes for the future, and the common thread of a helping hand in Evelyn.

KATY VINE (Author), Lydia Mackay (Narrator)

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Just Desserts

In partnership with Texas Monthly, Katy Vine's "Just Desserts" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins led a perfectly adequate middle class life in Corsicana, Texas. Mr. Jenkins, Sandy, worked as an accountant at Collin Street Bakery, world-famous for their fruitcakes. Kay, Mrs. Jenkins, was the more outgoing of the two, the one that friends and neighbors actually noticed and didn't mind talking to. Feelings of adequacy and invisibility weighed on Sandy, and were only compounded by his admiration of boss bakery owner Bob McNutt, a man who reminded him daily that others were respected and were living more luxurious lives than he. One day, Sandy decided to seize a bit of that respect and finer life he admired so much in McNutt for himself. With just a bit of manipulation of the bakery's accounts, Sandy wrote the first of many checks in the company's name to pay for the life of luxury he envisioned was his right. Combining a quintessential tale of living above one's means with the addiction of committing a crime time and again without getting caught, Katy Vine delivers the hard-to-imagine story of the Jenkinses and their mysterious rise through Corsicana society.

KATY VINE (Author), Lydia Mackay (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Lydia Mackay