Without wasting a word, Grimes presents a thoroughly readable view of how stories—and writers, at least of a certain...
An illuminating account of a writer’s life under the tutelage of another writer.
Today, Frank Conroy (1936–2005) is not read as much as he should be, but his harrowing memoir Stop-Time (1967) was required reading among aspiring writers for decades. Though he didn’t publish much thereafter, Conroy became the head of the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop and had trained a generation of teachers, novelists and poets by the time Grimes (Creative Writing/Texas State Univ.; City of God, 1995, etc.) arrived in Iowa City. That arrival seemed unlikely at first. After Conroy snubbed Grimes, then working as a waiter, at a Key West literary gathering, Grimes responded by tearing up a copy of Conroy’s book. Yet Conroy, whose gruffness masked a certain reserve, turned out to be a generous teacher, awarding an already accomplished Grimes a fellowship and a coveted place in seminars—favors fraught with peril in the Hobbesian political world of the university. Some of Grimes’s education took place in smoky bars over many drinks, for “Frank ignored warnings about high cholesterol, got drunk nightly, and couldn’t write without a cigarette.” Yet that education was thorough and grounded, and what Grimes tells of it—lessons that might be condensed into the credo, Pay attention—will be of benefit to any aspiring writer, though no substitute for reading voraciously and writing unforgivingly. Grimes delivers an eloquent portrait of the writer’s life, which is often solitary and difficult—though, despite his own history, not necessarily mired in madness (Prozac helped). The author writes self-effacingly, and sometimes quite humorously, as when he reveals the incestuous logrolling of academic writers—you teach my book, and I’ll blurb yours—and the mechanics of the publishing world (as one insider scolds him, “The next time you get an offer from Farrar, Straus, take it”).
Without wasting a word, Grimes presents a thoroughly readable view of how stories—and writers, at least of a certain kind—are made.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-9825048-8-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Tin House
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2010
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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