A revealing exploration of Ellison’s life and work.
A superb biography of the noted African-American writer and the tormented times in which he lived.
It is literature’s misfortune that Ralph Ellison (1913–94) never produced a novel after Invisible Man, which took him seven traumatic years to write. As Rampersad (English/Stanford Univ.; Jackie Robinson, 1997, etc.) chronicles, Ellison received accolade after accolade following its publication: the National Book Award, presidential medals, honorary doctorates, “a cascading flow of honors such as no other African-American writer had ever enjoyed.” Success may have ruined Ellison; he developed a taste for the good life, first-class travel, nice surroundings—a far remove from his Oklahoma childhood. Rising from poverty, Ellison trained as a musician and engaged in an activist politics that launched him as a writer. Long afterward, his failure to produce cost him the use of a university secretary, but he had tenure, and plenty of other universities were always trying to woo him away. That failure and the gossip it yielded within the academy made Ellison bitter and hostile, of a piece with his transformation from prewar Communist to postwar conservative, at least of a cultural kind. It is in this second guise that Ellison fought his fiercest battles, waged against the likes of Ishmael Reed and Amiri Baraka, as he “deplored the popularity of black ‘demagogues’ and the habit of idolizing ex-pimps and ex-prisoners . . . which ‘gave many kids the notion that there was no point in developing their minds.’ ” Ellison’s battles with other African-American writers, such as Langston Hughes, led to his alienation from their company, but not from the canon. Rampersad writes of such matters with a mix of amusement and sorrow, noting how they drained Ellison of his energies and clearly wishing that Ellison had found “a way to that second triumph of fiction of which he had been dreaming . . . for almost thirty-five years.”
A revealing exploration of Ellison’s life and work.Pub Date: April 20, 2007
ISBN: 0-375-40827-4
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
