Despite Jacobson’s efforts to persuade us that Cooper’s ideas influence American politics and culture in meaningful ways,...
A biography of Milton William Cooper (1943-2001), who inspired conspiracy cells through print publications and his radio broadcasts.
As New York magazine contributing editor Jacobson (The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans, 2010, etc.) writes, Cooper’s most widely read book, Behold a Pale Horse (1991), had existed on the edge of his consciousness for many years, as had Cooper’s radio show The Hour of the Time. Before Cooper died in a shootout with law enforcement agents at his Arizona home in 2001, Jacobson never thought to interview the conspiracist, who had developed a cult following. Eventually, though, for reasons Jacobson cannot pinpoint, he felt the call to research Cooper’s life and legacy. The author found plenty of living sources, including former wives, children, acolytes, supporters, and detractors. In addition, the author listened to hours of Cooper’s broadcasts and read millions of published words. Ultimately, given Cooper’s viewpoints and work, writing this biography must have been a difficult task; he presented as fact much that can never be proven, based to some extent on information he claims to have absorbed while in the military during the Vietnam War. Depending on the reader’s point of view on human nature, Cooper will come off as either sincere about the supposedly factual conspiracies he presented or be labeled a paranoid autodidact. What many readers will conclude: On topics from UFOs to “solving” the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Cooper reached conclusions in a fevered mind and then bent information to fit the conclusions. A temperamental man who drank heavily, assaulted at least some of his wives, lost contact with most of his children, Cooper emerges from these pages as a thoroughly unpleasant, unhappy man.
Despite Jacobson’s efforts to persuade us that Cooper’s ideas influence American politics and culture in meaningful ways, the biography seems like a lot of effort for little payoff.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-16995-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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