A vivid re-creation of a campaign so vicious that the soldiers involved rejoiced when they heard about Hiroshima.
A memoir of World War II’s last great battle by an officer who is now 99.
Shaw was a field artillery unit commander already bloodied by the 1944 invasion of the Philippines when his unit landed on Okinawa on April 1, 1945. The immense invasion, the most expansive amphibious assault of the Pacific War (1,500 Allied ships and 1.5 million soldiers), came ashore meeting no resistance, which was the result of deceiving the Japanese, according to the author. In fact, the Japanese had given up defending beaches—as they had abandoned mass banzai charges—because it didn’t work. They had deeply fortified part of the island and prepared to fight to the death. Moving inland, the troops encountered resistance after a few days, and here the narrative records nearly three months of brutal combat that killed more than 100,000 Japanese soldiers, 10,000 Americans, and far more Okinawan civilians. Shaw often scouted ahead of his battery, observing frontline infantry in action. His purported duty was to direct artillery fire, but readers expecting to learn the experiences of a WWII forward observer will discover that this is mostly a literary device. In the text, co-written by Wise, Shaw is the omniscient observer describing the murderous battles of his division down to company and platoon level across the island. The author also offers his eyewitness account of the suicides of the defeated Japanese generals and descriptions of regular trips to the rear to record deliberations of the senior commanders and chat with his men. The result is a docudrama with invented dialogue and action that must be at least partly fictionalized because it’s unlikely Shaw could have witnessed so much, not to mention remember it.
A vivid re-creation of a campaign so vicious that the soldiers involved rejoiced when they heard about Hiroshima.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-290744-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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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