Local surgeon to hold book signing today

BROWNSVILLE – A local surgeon on Wednesday will sign copies of a book he wrote based on his experiences in the operating room.

Jose Zamora, author of "Thirty Dates With Death: Memoirs of a Surgeon," will hold a book signing from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, 660 E. Ringgold St.

"It’s a collection of short stories, and it is part fiction and part true-life, biography," said Zamora, who wrote under the pseudonym Giorgio Germont because he felt a pen name gave him more literary freedom.

"Some of these stories are true accounts of encounters with patients," said Zamora, who wrote the book in 2005.

"In 2005, it was my anniversary from graduating from medical school," he said. "It was a 30 year’s anniversary. So I figured, that’s why a play of words, that it’s called ‘thirty dates with death’ — my 30 years of being a physician which was Nov. 7, 2005."

Zamora said he believes every reader will have a different response to the book.

"I believe that they will have a different take according to their own experience," he said. "I think it will be a personal journey that will probably leave a different message with different people. But in general I suspect they will be able to understand the process of death and grieving and the essence of true medicine that adheres to the tenets of the Hippocratic oath."

What was the most difficult part of the project?

"I think choosing the stories and choosing the order — finding a balance of buoyancy between being too graphic or too depressing and not having a real message or redeeming value," he said. "The book is 226 pages, the manuscript was 400 pages, so a lot of editing went into removing things that I thought weren’t fit to print."

Zamora said he was secluded for about two years while working on the book.

"It was a lonely journey for me," he said. "But all of those people that left me a lesson in my professional and personal life, I brought them back to life. They are in the book. So I don’t worry about forgetting something that happened 25 or 30 years ago."

Several of the stories are based in Brownsville and Zamora will read one of them at the signing.