The acclaimed author of My Own Country (1996) turns his gaze inward to a pair of crises that hit even closer to home than the AIDS epidemic of which he wrote previously. Verghese took a teaching position at Texas Tech’s medical school, and it’s his arrival in the unfamiliar city of El Paso that triggers the events of his second book (parts of which appeared in the New Yorker). His marriage, already on the rocks in My Own Country, has collapsed utterly and the couple agree to a separation. In a new job in a new city, he finds himself more alone than he has ever been. But he becomes acquainted with a charming fourth-year student on his rotation, David, a former professional tennis player from Australia. Verghese, an ardent amateur himself, begins to play regularly with David and the two become close friends, indeed deeply dependent on each other. Gradually, the younger man begins to confide in his teacher and friend. David has a secret, known to most of the other students and staff at the teaching hospital but not to the recently arrived Verghese; he is a recovering drug addict whose presence at Tech is only possible if he maintains a rigorous schedule of AA meetings and urine tests. When David relapses and his life begins to spiral out of control, Verghese finds himself drawn into the young man’s troubles. As in his previous book, Verghese distinguishes himself by virtue not only of tremendous writing skill—he has a talented diagnostician’s observant eye and a gift for description—but also by his great humanity and humility. Verghese manages to recount the story of the failure of his marriage without recriminations and with a remarkable evenhandedness. Likewise, he tells David’s story honestly and movingly. Although it runs down a little in the last 50 pages or so, this is a compulsively readable and painful book, a work of compassion and intelligence.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-06-017405-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1998
Flawed but poignant and often funny.
Comedian and Onion director of digital Thurston (Better Than Crying: Poking Fun at Politics, the Press & Pop Culture, 2003) delivers a “book about the ideas of blackness” in the guise of a helpful how-to guide to being black.
The author and a “Black Panel” made up of friends and colleagues, including one white person to avoid charges of reverse discrimination and also as a control group, ponder many questions about being black—e.g., “When did you first realize you were black?” and “Can you swim?” However, the humor does not serve the role of making light of race and racism, but rather as a gentle skewering that invites serious consideration of how black Americans are often limited by certain expectations concerning blackness. In “How to Speak for All Black People,” Thurston challenges the assumption that one black person can speak to the experience of an entire race, as well as the assumption that a black person can only speak to the black experience. In “How to Be the Black Employee,” he confronts the challenges of being hired both for the job and for being black—you will and must be, for instance, featured in every company photo. The humor does not always work; at times it is blog-like cleverness for the sake of cleverness (and is yet another joke about blacks needing white friends to get a cab really needed?). Thurston is at his best when he writes about his own life: growing up in Washington, D.C., attending Sidwell Friends School, matriculating at Harvard (“my experience of race at Harvard was full of joy and excitement”). The key to greater harmony is not necessarily seeing beyond race, but, as one Black Panelist puts it, to “see that and all of the things that I have done, to embrace all of me.”
Flawed but poignant and often funny.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-200321-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
Caro’s skill as a biographer, master of compelling prose, appealing self-deprecation, and overall generous spirit shine...
At age 83, the iconic biographer takes time away from his work on the fifth volume of his acclaimed Lyndon Johnson biography to offer wisdom about researching and writing.
In sparkling prose, Caro (The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power, 2012, etc.)—who has won two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Book Awards, and three National Book Critics Circle Awards, among countless other honors—recounts his path from growing up sheltered in New York City to studying at Princeton, Harvard, and Columbia to unexpectedly becoming a newspaper reporter and deciding to devote his life to writing books. Thinking about his first book topic, he landed on developer Robert Moses, “the most powerful figure in New York City and New York State for more than forty years—more powerful than any mayor or any governor, or any mayor and governor combined.” After Caro received a book contract with a small advance from a publisher, he, his wife (and research assistant), Ina, and their son struggled to make ends meet as the project consumed about a decade, much longer than the author had anticipated. The book was more than 1,300 pages, and its surprising success gave Caro some financial stability. The author explains that he focused on Johnson next as an exemplar of how to wield political power on a national scale. Throughout the book, the author shares fascinating insights into his research process in archives; his information-gathering in the field, such as the Texas Hill Country; his interviewing techniques; his practice of writing the first draft longhand with pens and pencils; and his ability to think deeply about his material. Caro also offers numerous memorable anecdotes—e.g., how he verified rumors that Johnson became a senator in 1948 via illegal ballot counting in one rural county.
Caro’s skill as a biographer, master of compelling prose, appealing self-deprecation, and overall generous spirit shine through on every page.Pub Date: April 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-65634-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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