Insightful and intriguing, Gordon’s book offers a rare glimpse into a privileged world—and twisted personal...
Magazine writer Gordon (Journalism/New York Univ.; Mrs. Astor Regrets: The Hidden Betrayals of a Family Beyond Reproach, 2008) provides an illuminating biography of the reclusive, and largely forgotten, American heiress Huguette Clark (1906-2011).
The youngest daughter of a ruthless Montana copper magnate and former U.S. senator, Clark was heir to wealth rivaled only by that of other American industrialist families such as the Rockefellers, Carnegies and Vanderbilts. As a child, Clark lived in a beautiful home in the most exclusive district in Paris, cocooned in “unimaginable luxury.” She and her beloved older sister, Andrée, had everything from nannies and tutors to unlimited access to the best of French and European fine art. But Huguette was a shy child who “hated being on display.” However much her parents’ wealth sheltered her from the bitter realities of life, it could not shield her from the pain of her sister’s untimely death at age 17 or the ensuing loneliness. Money, in fact, put her in the media limelight she hated, as became apparent after her brief 1928 marriage ended in divorce. From that point forward, Clark withdrew from public life and pursued her one enduring love, art. She remained close to her mother, who she believed had been unfairly treated by her much older half siblings. After a final retreat to her Fifth Avenue apartment in the 1970s, she communicated with the few people still remaining in her life via letter and telephone. In 1991, a bout with cancer eventually forced her out of seclusion into the hospital. After treatment, she lived as a full-time patient until her death in 2011 while dispensing, of her own free will, millions of dollars in largesse to those who cared for (and also manipulated) her.
Insightful and intriguing, Gordon’s book offers a rare glimpse into a privileged world—and twisted personal psychology—beyond imagining.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4555-1263-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
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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