The urgency and desperation of addiction told through crisp, biting sarcasm and self-deprecating humor.
A stand-up comedian reclaims her life after three decades of alcohol abuse.
Though Los Angeles–based comic and animated sketch writer Tozer’s wryly dramatic debut memoir is steeped with snarky one-liners, there is also angst, regret, and reflective relief lurking just behind her wisecracking wit. She writes of growing up in Pueblo, Colorado, a place with little to do but “breed and drink, so that’s what everyone does.” This sense of boredom was only exacerbated by the family-owned barroom business, alcoholic relatives, and a “working warrior” mother who swiftly divorced Tozer’s depressive father. Cute, crudely drawn stick-figure illustrations escort readers through the author’s life beyond puberty into the summer of 1989, with the edgy temptations of binge drinking and boys and a true scare after her baby sister was almost killed by a drunk driver. Even a college basketball scholarship was an insufficient distraction as Tozer began showing up drunk to night classes. An impulsive, ill-fated move to New York City, followed by dead-end jobs and more drinking and blackouts, only moved her closer to rock bottom, “like one of those steps you take right into a pile of dog shit, but you don’t realize it until you get home.” The author perused comedy clubs and then dove headlong into the craft with classes and live stand-up attempts, yet her relationships with family, friends, and a dysfunctional love affair continued to suffer. When her calamitous hangover stories translated into effective comedy, a Hollywood producer expressed interest, and the author moved west. Tozer’s memoir becomes reflective in the closing chapters as she remarks on her hard-won recovery and how it’s changed her life, career, and family relationships. Her journey reflects the seriousness of her alcoholism with both personal responsibility and a resilient spirit.
The urgency and desperation of addiction told through crisp, biting sarcasm and self-deprecating humor.Pub Date: June 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7624-5972-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Running Press
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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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