Farmer says he remains uncomfortable with the book’s fairly extensive treatment of his personal life and history—chapters which, while uncovering no lurid scandals, hit close to home with accounts of his romantic life.

“I’m not happy having this kind of spotlight turned on me,” he says. “Would you be?”

“It’s not easy to be written about,” Kidder says. “I can only imagine what it’s like to open up a book and it’s you.”

Nevertheless, Farmer says that a second reading convinced himself that Kidder had written “a beautiful story about Haiti.”

“I think Tracy Kidder is one of the best writers out there,” he says. “I love the way he writes, his spare prose, his humor, his humility, his ability to refer back to previous events or expressions…I can’t say that I’ve ever read a better book about those topics, or seen a better written book.”

Much of Farmer’s discomfort is not so much with Kidder or the book as with his own fame—what he describes as the unintended side effects of his relentless efforts to promote Partners in Health’s agenda of a preferential option for the poor. Paul Farmer may not be a household name, but as infectious-disease doctors go, he is a veritable celebrity.

Farmer says he cannot embrace this role wholeheartedly; he would like to heal the world’s poor without becoming a celebrity.

“I don’t want to have a ton of e-mail or letters I can’t answer,” he says. “I’m pretty overwhelmed keeping up with patients and students as it is.”

Farmer is known for comprehensively responding to the flood of electronic messages that fill his inbox—often within hours, whether he is in Boston, Haiti or Siberia.

And beyond the pragmatic complications of fame, Farmer has philosophical objections about becoming the star of the show.

“The real reason not to do it is because the story is not about me or my co-workers, although it makes for interesting reading,” he says. “The real story is the scandal of poverty in the world today: people who in this affluent era have no food, no water and no medical care.”

Kidder says Farmer was reluctant when he first proposed writing the book.

“They sort of talked him into it,” he says of Farmer’s colleagues and friends.

Farmer says he is especially unhappy with the tendency of observers to build a cult of personality around him, calling him perfect or more than human.

“Should you have to be a saint or without foibles and flaws in order to fight for social justice?” he asks. “I hope not, because I’m certainly not worthy of the people we seek to serve. But just because we’re not good enough, not worthy, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be allowed to do this work and to exhort others to do it, too.”