Occasionally uneven but a pleasure for Perry’s loyal fans and a book that is likely to win her some new ones as well.
Literary biographer Drayton (Design/Unitec Institute of Technology; Ngaio Marsh: Her Life in Crime, 2008, etc.) turns her attention to novelist Anne Perry (b. 1938) and the past she couldn’t keep hidden.
The author begins at a pivotal moment in Perry’s life: the phone call from a journalist to her agent offering the theory—about to be printed—that Perry was actually Juliet Hulme, perpetrator of a famous New Zealand murder. When that theory turned out to be fact, the lives of Perry and all those connected to her were turned upside down. Perry, her agents and her publicist have always argued that the murder is in the past, and Perry, who committed the crime as a teenager, and her family should be allowed to leave it there. While it is difficult not to feel for Perry, it is equally difficult to ignore the fact that the argument holds sway over this biography as well. Drayton creates a conundrum in which she has made Perry’s unveiling as Hulme the center of the book but also believes it deserves less attention than it’s been given. However, the author ably plumbs the Hulme story for how it has shaped Perry’s crime fiction and provides other insights into Perry’s writing style and process. The author includes detailed background on Perry’s unpublished attempts, as well as the origins and development of many of her best-selling books. Though they interrupt the narrative flow, descriptions of each of Perry’s novels will trigger interest for those unfamiliar with her work. Drayton tells a beguiling story of an author’s climb to the best-seller lists and how a secret she would rather keep hidden was publicly made known.
Occasionally uneven but a pleasure for Perry’s loyal fans and a book that is likely to win her some new ones as well.Pub Date: July 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62872-324-3
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
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
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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