by Arthur Kleinman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 17, 2019
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
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
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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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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