A triumphant story of a woman coming to terms with the loss of her mother and an inspiring, though haunting, testament to...
In this debut memoir, a determined young woman comes of age in New York City following the death of her mother.
Donsky’s mother, Veronica, died giving birth to her younger brother, Eddie, but no one in the family told the author—not even her father. She “never hear[s] him say her name, never found a picture of her in the house.” Instead, she spent her adolescence believing that her mother was “missing,” until a cousin finally told her that she was dead. Her father remarried when her brother was still an infant, and he made the author swear to never tell Eddie that “Miss Marge” isn’t his real mother. The lie was a terrible burden on the author: “When a child is forbidden to say what he or she knows to be the truth…the heart is never free and easy.” As she grew older, she longed to go to college, but her father said that “no one needs college to get married and have a bunch of kids.” However, she was dead set on leaving Yonkers, so she took night classes at Fordham University and became a stewardess for Trans World Airlines. Eventually, she did marry, and while on a trip to visit her mother’s grave, she uncovered a terrible secret. Donsky’s struggle to understand her father is a familiar one, but watching their relationship deteriorate is heart-wrenching. It’s impossible not to root for the tough, sassy author as she builds her own life and finds closure in the aftermath of mother’s death. The memoir is fast-paced and absorbing and features some beautifully rendered reflections on her complicated relationship with her father: “He’s like the clouds racing by. I love watching them, even though I don’t know a thing about clouds.” The book’s climax, after a slow buildup, is shocking without resorting to melodrama. Overall, Donsky handles her family’s story gently, sidestepping sentimentality to reveal honest recollections of her girlhood.
A triumphant story of a woman coming to terms with the loss of her mother and an inspiring, though haunting, testament to the endurance of the human spirit.Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-63152-074-7
Page Count: 338
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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