An often engaging memoir of recovery, even if readers may not respond to all its messages.
A man reflects on his recovery from a traumatic brain injury in this debut memoir.
In the fall of 1995, Bizzell had just started courses at Indiana University’s Graduate School of Mathematics when, out bicycling one day, he was the victim of a hit-and-run in which he suffered severe injuries. (The driver of the car was never found.) His mother was shocked when she arrived at the critical care unit to find her son in a coma—his face looking, as she puts it, “like a chunk of raw beef!” The external wounds healed fairly quickly, but Kevin’s closed-head contrecoup injury left him with significant amnesia, particularly about recent events. It took hard work in rehab for him to regain as much physical, cognitive and emotional strength as possible. He eventually recovered sufficiently to be able to get an education degree, move west and teach high school math in New Mexico. There, he found a spiritual path for himself, drawing on Hindu, Native American and other religious practices. The book’s first section, in which Kevin and his mother alternate chapters, offers an intriguing double perspective. At one point, for example, his mother is frustrated with Kevin’s contemplation of leaving the hospital against medical advice; he explains that at the time he was worried about paying for his hospitalization. The latter section, on Kevin’s alternative health care and spiritual journeys, may go into too much detail for many readers. When the memoir starts to focus on the author’s opinions regarding conspiracy theories (a new world order, secret societies, government FEMA camps, Jesuits), readers’ patience is likely to wane. “I certainly don’t think all of the things on the web-net are true,” he writes, but he notes that his background as a mathematician equips him to discern patterns. Nevertheless, the author is able to laugh at himself, and he writes with humility about his beliefs, which provides some welcome balance.
An often engaging memoir of recovery, even if readers may not respond to all its messages.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-1492251408
Page Count: 294
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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