An intriguing biography of a unique—and on Nantucket, irreplaceable—doctor.
In this absorbing debut, award-winning New York Times staff writer Belluck chronicles the daily life of a maverick physician and the Nantucket community he serves.
In addition to his job as head of medicine at Nantucket Cottage Hospital, Dr. Timothy Lepore, a general surgeon, also runs a family practice and serves as the physician for the high-school football team—those are only his official jobs. Not only is his role “central to the health and life of a community in ways that rarely occur these days,” writes the author, but it is also exemplary of the art of healing. “His unconventional story shows…that what really matters is the time, effort, conviction, and care that a doctor provides.” Lepore is a larger-than-life figure on Nantucket, and his quirks are the stuff of legend—e.g., he carves scalpels from obsidian using stone-age techniques, and he hunts with a pet hawk. Also legendary are his diagnostic skills and dedication to his patients. Over the 30 years that he has practiced medicine on the island, Lepore has dealt with medical emergencies at times when weather conditions prevented the transfer of a patient to a specialist on the mainland. He has treated celebrities on summer vacation, including members of the Kennedy family, but the year-rounders, many of whom work in low-wage jobs in the tourist industry, form the core of his practice. Widely traveled summer tourists may suffer exotic diseases that challenge his expertise, but depression, alcohol abuse and teen suicide are endemic on the island. Under Lepore's leadership, Nantucket’s hospital has played a crucial role in maintaining the community's health, but it is becoming less sustainable. “The cost of providing free care to poor and uninsured patients ha[s] grown by 60 percent,” writes Belluck. Notes the hospital’s CEO, “We kept up with the medical care, but not with the business of medical care.”
An intriguing biography of a unique—and on Nantucket, irreplaceable—doctor.Pub Date: May 29, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-58648-751-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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