Extreme Remedies and Other Stories collects short stories from Helen Hudson's long writing career along with autobiographical pieces that reveal how the concerns in her fiction intertwine with the concerns of her life. The characters in these stories grasp blindly in pursuit of empathy. A retired professor can't find anyone he can speak to of his wife's passing. An architect finds himself confined in a retirement home structured to satisfy his ambition rather than human needs. A compulsive volunteer fails to recognize the plight of one who, in his boorish way, has sought out her care. The struggles of these characters reveal that empathy is as vital to the giver as the receiver, a point brought home in the autobiographical vignettes interspersed throughout.