An uneven but poignant memoir that will be useful to caregivers of all ages and occupations.
A renowned psychiatrist and anthropologist mixes a memoir of his adolescence and professional training with a detailed account of his decade as a caregiver for his wife, who was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Born in 1941, Kleinman (Anthropology/Harvard Univ.; What Really Matters: Living a Moral Life Amidst Uncertainty and Danger, 2006, etc.) gravitated toward medical studies after a difficult family life and a streak of “waywardness.” He relates his love-at-first-sight relationship with Joan. They met in college; she was two years his elder, from a more stable family and a worldlier background. For many years, she placed her professional desires in the background to care for the home, rear their children, take the lead in developing their friendships, and make day-to-day living as easy as possible for her workaholic husband. His dual interest in both medical care and anthropology led them around the globe, with emphases on China and Taiwan. Eventually, Joan also developed expertise in Chinese language and culture. Given her sterling example of winning trust from almost every person who entered her life, Kleinman developed deep empathy and excellent listening skills, making him a holistic practitioner who understood the intricate connections among mind, body, and the stresses of the larger culture. When Joan started failing physically before age 60 due to what finally got diagnosed as early-onset Alzheimer’s, Kleinman felt compelled to learn how to serve as a caregiver within what he came to understand as a dysfunctional American health care bureaucracy. In addition to providing a detailed account of Joan’s decline and death during 2011, he also offers case studies of his nonfamily patients. As he clearly shows, his patients informed his care of Joan, and his arduous caregiving for Joan informed his medical practice. The second half of the book, focused on the author’s dedication to his wife’s care, is more compelling than the scattered, often repetitious first half.
An uneven but poignant memoir that will be useful to caregivers of all ages and occupations.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55932-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 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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