A positive, perceptive primer for cancer patients and caregivers.
A novelist and her husband share insights regarding his cancer journey in this inspirational memoir.
In 2013, Wiggins slipped off a ladder, with persistent back pain leading to a diagnosis of stage 3 multiple myeloma, a rare cancer formed by malignant plasma cells. The couple mobilized to address Wiggins’ care, which included living in temporary quarters near the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance while he underwent aggressive chemotherapy and stem cell transplants. They share their story through essays, poems, and, most particularly, letters written during this period, with some family/friend replies also included. Contributions from Wiggins, a scientist, focus on the clinical analysis of his condition. Rolnick, whose musings make up the majority of this memoir, is more literary and emotional, noting how she relished spooning within the “cocoon” of Wiggins’ arms and how the cocoon envelops “cancer patients, medical teams, and caregivers.” The couple weigh in on the major lab mix-up that could have cost Wiggins his life. Additionally, Rolnick touches on her mother’s death and granddaughter’s birth during this time. By memoir’s end, the couple are back in their Washington state home, with Wiggins in remission. Given that Wiggins’ cancer is incurable, however, the future remains uncertain. Rolnick concludes the book with a self-questionnaire, answering “Did you ever get angry?” with “I decided early on not to waste my time on anger,” and questions for readers to ponder, including practicalities of caregiving—how to handle stress, finances, etc. Rolnick (River of Angels, 2010, etc.) deploys her writer’s craft to evocative effect in this collection. She conjures up several striking images, not only her cocoon analogy, but also her comparison of Jim’s “secret strength” to “upside-down dogwood flowers.” Yet Rolnick isn’t simply lyrical; she also provides unsparing glimpses into the challenges and struggles faced by this couple, which she makes clear were made bearable by their loving connection and the ideology that “Finding joy is a choice.” Thus, while some of the less-than-revelatory friend replies could have been trimmed, overall, this collection delivers instructive, uplifting testimony.
A positive, perceptive primer for cancer patients and caregivers.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9845119-3-8
Page Count: 118
Publisher: Sedro Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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