SALISBURY, Gay

PERSONAL: Female.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY. Agent—c/o Author Mail, W. W. Norton, 500 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10110-0017.

CAREER: Editor and author. Basic Books, New York, NY, former associate publisher; Pantheon, New York, NY, former editorial assistant.

WRITINGS:

(With Laney Salisbury) The Cruelest Miles: TheHeroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race against an Epidemic, W. W. Norton (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Gay Salisbury and her cousin Laney Salisbury wrote The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race against an Epidemic, the story of a diphtheria epidemic that erupted in Alaska in 1925. At that time, it was impossible to send supplies to Alaska in the winter except by dogsled. When a diphtheria epidemic broke out during a severe blizzard in January of 1925, Dr. Curtis Welch, the only doctor in Nome, Alaska, was in desperate need of one million units of antitoxin to save his patients. Children were especially at risk from the disease, which causes the victim to suffocate. Using a relay of dogsled teams which fought against temperatures as cold as fifty degrees below zero, mushers were able to deliver the medicine from Anchorage, Alaska, some 700 miles away, on February 2, 1925. The dramatic operation was the first to be covered live nationwide by radio, capturing the hearts of a nation, and Balto, the lead dog in the team that first made it to Nome, is honored today with a statue in New York's Central Park. Of more lasting influence, the episode moved the U.S. government to require routine diphtheria inoculations for all small children. "The Salisburys have written an amazing story of endurance and courage," George Cohen wrote in Booklist, while a critic for Kirkus Reviews called The Cruelest Miles "a riveting epic that memorably honors the heroes, both human and canine, who pushed themselves to the limit to save others." Sara Wheeler, reviewing the Salisbury's work for the New York Times, ranked The Cruelest Miles "among the best" and "a classic tale of man against nature."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 2003, George Cohen, review of TheCruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race against an Epidemic, p. 1562.

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2003, review of The Cruelest Miles, p. 594.

Minnesota Star-Tribune, June 8, 2003, Emily Carter, review of The Cruelest Miles.

New York Times, June 8, 2003, Sara Wheeler, "The Heroes Were Huskies," p. 17.*