A little more of the before and after of their war experiences might have enriched the context, but Bolger ably conveys how...
A crisp account of a messy war, focusing on two Nebraska brothers, one of whom would later become a senator and Secretary of Defense.
Chuck Hagel supported the Vietnam War even before he enlisted, and his younger brother Tom had his reservations, which turned into outright opposition from his battle-scarred experiences. Yet the two fought beside each other even as the war deepened into an unwinnable quagmire. Bolger (Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, 2014, etc.), who won five Bronze Stars during his Army career, brings a unique perspective to the story, as he understands the intricacies of modern warfare and also acknowledges the wide gap between those who fight these wars and those who lead them. He maintains a tight, precise focus on the military campaigns in Vietnam while providing context from back home as anti-war efforts intensified. From the start, Chuck was a natural leader, excelling at whatever he attempted, and he fit well within the military culture—as did Tom, at least at the start, though he wasn’t quite the overachiever his brother was. Despite plenty of combat action, both thankfully returned home; Chuck was discharged first, and he embarked on a career as a radio broadcaster before going into politics. Tom saw his reservations deepen as he attempted but couldn’t quite numb himself with alcohol and marijuana, with too much time to think after his transfer from the battle lines. After he followed his brother home to Nebraska, an argument about the war resulted in a fistfight, one that alarmed the neighbors into calling the police. They resolved never to discuss it again, as Chuck became a conservative Republican legislator and Tom a more liberal lawyer and professor of law.
A little more of the before and after of their war experiences might have enriched the context, but Bolger ably conveys how Vietnam felt to those who fought it and what it meant.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-306-90326-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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