Those looking for a cogent analysis of Robinson’s impact on the civil-rights movement and the tribulations faced by a man...
An entertaining and equitable examination of Jackie Robinson’s groundbreaking rookie season.
In 1947, major-league baseball was still the exclusive province of white players. Change was in the wind, however, and the progressive president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey, was at the forefront for moral, practical and economic reasons. Rickey signed Robinson, making him the first black player in the majors. Eig (Luckiest Man, 2005) chronicles Robinson’s journey from college-football star to baseball legend, with plenty of digressions to flesh out key participants (and a few too many tangential discourses on less important individuals). While the Negro leagues abounded with talented players, white Americans doubted their ability to handle the pressure of big-league ball. Understanding that overcoming that perception would require players to have more than mere talent, Rickey shrewdly chose a man who wasn’t necessarily the most skilled black player available, Eig contends, but had the greatest will to win. Robinson’s competitive streak outstripped even his considerable athletic gifts, and though he had a sullen, almost combative manner at times, his hide was thick enough to deal with blatant racism from both teammates and opponents, as well as the isolation that came with being forced to eat at different restaurants and stay in different hotels. The author combs through sportswriters’ accounts of Robinson’s landmark summer, supplementing his narrative with interviews with fellow players, spectators and cultural observers. Baseball fans will delight in a detailed account of the ’47 Dodgers-Yankees World Series and revel in the portraits of some of baseball’s more interesting characters, even if they don’t always have much of a connection to Robinson.
Those looking for a cogent analysis of Robinson’s impact on the civil-rights movement and the tribulations faced by a man thrust into the role of trailblazer will be justly rewarded, but they’ll have to sit through nine innings to get to it.Pub Date: April 3, 2007
ISBN: 0-7432-9460-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2007
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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