Far too wordy, but a worthwhile record of a dark and violent era.
Panoramic memoir encompassing the Polish ghetto, the birth of Israel, bedroom tales and everything in between.
Neiger’s life story is certainly worth retelling. Born in a Polish Jewish ghetto in 1931, he grew up to witness the decimation of his community by the Nazis. His tales of massacres and of the inhumane treatment of individuals are chilling, and well worth recording for posterity. His contemplation of a dead body at his feet, his mother’s lucky escape from murder by a soldier over a mere loaf of bread and his own boyhood thoughts about what seemed to be impending death are among the devastating memories that must not be forgotten by current generations. The author’s family managed to flee Poland and he thereby escaped imprisonment in the concentration camps. After surviving the Holocaust, Neiger left for Palestine on the famed ship Exodus, and joined the Israeli army. He was wounded in battle in the Sinai, and provides a riveting account of his experience in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Eventually Neiger immigrated to the United States. While the author’s story is compelling, it’s also replete with unnecessary asides and ill-placed lascivious detours. The author’s active–if not overdeveloped–sex life dominates much of the book, such that most of the closing chapters are a mere laundry list of past affairs. (“My prostate was producing sperms at a lightening speed”). Given the book’s overarching themes, his talk of uncontrollable erections, foreplay with a cousin and even sexual dreams featuring his mother can be quite off-putting. Neiger admits that he is overly chatty, and the book reflects this tendency. It’s a heavy tome that could be pared down considerably by working on the overly conversational tone throughout. These flaws aside, society is better off for having the recollections of yet another Holocaust survivor recorded for the sake of our collective memory.
Far too wordy, but a worthwhile record of a dark and violent era.Pub Date: Dec. 7, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4257-7935-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2011
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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