An often gripping account of a tempestuous half-century.
A refugee from the Soviet Union settles in the United States and hustles to make a life there in this memoir.
In 1949, after fleeing Ukraine and attending a university in Germany, Konstantin (A Red Boyhood—Growing Up Under Stalin, 2008) landed in Boston. He had only $22 to his name, warily hidden in the lining of his pants, and the support of his sponsor, the New York Association for New Americans. It wasn’t easy for him to find work as a mechanical engineer, so he barely made ends meet by leapfrogging from one menial job to another. He finally found more promising employment in Ohio and was eventually able, in 1969 at the age of 40, to start his own business with his brother, Bill. Along the way, he fell in love with a woman named Rosaria Puccio, and they married and had children. The author negotiated their religious differences—he’s decidedly secular and she was raised Catholic—with the help of the Ethical Culture Society, a humanist philosophical group that emphasizes the shared moral ground of the world’s major theologies. Konstantin, an avid reader and lifelong student, later earned a master’s degree from Columbia University in industrial management. In this book, he constantly situates his own personal experience in the context of geopolitical affairs, which largely meant the dramatic unfolding of the Cold War. He also includes astute discussions of American politics, never shying away from analysis of major political figures, such as presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, or watershed events, such as the Bay of Pigs and Watergate. One recurrent theme is his exasperation with Western credulity: “I was still haunted by the question of why so many Americans and European intellectuals…still believed the Soviet propaganda.” This is the second installment of the author’s memoirs, and as in many autobiographies, there’s plenty of space devoted to quotidian affairs—the details of vacations, personal financial matters, and the like. These discussions will largely interest those who know the author personally, particularly his family members. However, his discussions of communism’s unraveling, and of its intellectual attraction to Westerners, provide a stirring testimony of real, though sometimes-ignored, global atrocities. It establishes Konstantin as an extraordinary moral witness who faithfully recorded depredations that man visited upon his fellow man in the name of ideology.
An often gripping account of a tempestuous half-century.Pub Date: April 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-944785-03-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: Konstantin Memoirs
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A thoughtful, well-presented argument about an issue many people face.
A doctor’s manifesto about terminally ill patients’ right to die.
While many Americans believe that the terminally ill should be able to choose to end their lives, the medical profession, the courts and the government mostly remain beholden to traditional and religious beliefs about the sanctity of life. Preston, a medical professor for more than 20 years, argues that it is time to re-evaluate those ethics in light of today’s technology and its ability to prolong life beyond its natural course. The author writes that confusion and misconception pervade most discussions about aid in dying. He distinguishes "patient-directed dying" or "aid in dying" from terms like "physician-assisted suicide” or "euthanasia." In his analysis, the word "suicide" should not apply to someone who is dying with no hope of recovery. Euthanasia, on the other hand, refers to someone other than the patient administering a lethal drug. Patient-directed dying is when a terminally ill individual is able to request and obtain a prescription for medication to end his or her life, under guidelines set to guard against abuse. Through four composite stories based on situations Preston has witnessed from counseling terminally ill patients and their families, he reveals the suffering caused by prohibitions against patient-directed dying. He adds that doctors must be more willing to care for patients when curing them is no longer possible, and recognize that exhausting every medical treatment, no matter how slim the chances of success, often just prolongs suffering. Preston states his case persuasively, illustrates the need for patient-directed dying as an option, counters arguments often made against it and suggests compromises to address concerns on both sides of the debate.
A thoughtful, well-presented argument about an issue many people face.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 1936
ISBN: 978-1-58348-461-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This competent biography of California senator Feinstein, who in November will be up for reelection, hews to the new archetype in political drama: It's the tale of the child who triumphs over the dysfunctions of family life and grows up to become an influential public figure. Roberts, editorial page editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, offers a tepid round-up of Feinstein's life and career. He sketches Feinstein's parents, a successful doctor and an abusive mother, and suggests that in childhood Feinstein learned to transform emotional pain into ambition. After Stanford, Dianne Goldman returned home to San Francisco in 1956, began learning politics, and eloped with lawyer Jack Berman. Divorced within three years, she raised a daughter, developed her political profile as a member of the state parole board for women, and found lasting love with neurosurgeon Bert Feinstein. In 1969, she won election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, casting her crusade—as throughout her career, the author notes aptly—``in terms that threatened neither men nor the status quo.'' Insecure and imperious, Democrat Feinstein gained a reputation as a ``paradoxical liberal'' (most notably by abandoning her opposition to the death penalty). In 1978 her husband died, San Francisco was rocked by the Jonestown tragedy, and Supervisor Dan White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Feinstein became acting mayor, and her stewardship lasted nine years, earning her a national reputation. She lost the 1990 race for governor to Pete Wilson but rebounded in 1992, when she was elected to fill out Wilson's uncompleted Senate term. She won on the strength of her campaign style, big spending, and the postAnita Hill ``Year of the Woman'' campaign of the Democratic National Committee. Though Feinstein once aspired to be president, she now says the Senate's high enough. Indeed, this book, though mainly respectful, should not garner her new acolytes. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen) ($50,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-258508-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
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