Whatever readers believe or don’t about Andy Kaufman, this book will confirm that particular “truth.”
Another biography of the idiosyncratic comedian that will make fans question what the authors’ previous work on the subject offered and to doubt that this will really be their “final” word.
The co-authors were both very close to the late comic provocateur, as Zmuda (Andy Kaufman Revealed, 1999) was his best friend, and collaborator/writer Margulies (Dear Andy Kaufman, I Hate Your Guts!, 2009) was his lover and partner until his death in 1984. The book offers a split opinion on that death, with Zmuda still maintaining that it was a hoax and offering frequent conversations with Kaufman on how it could be perpetrated, while Margulies, now married, believes that the death attributed to cancer was more likely a result of AIDS: “His bisexuality would be so humdrum today that I considered not even mentioning it, but Bob and I agreed that we would be completely honest in this book, since it is most likely the last book we will write about Andy.” Zmuda, who often played Kaufman’s alter ego Tony Clifton when his friend was alive, has continued to perform as Clifton since Kaufman’s death, while blurring the line between preserving and extending Kaufman’s legacy and capitalizing on his memory. He is the primary author, with interludes from Margulies, and much of the book concerns the roles the two played in the making of Man on the Moon, starring Jim Carrey as Andy, and the tensions between the two authors and the Kaufman family over his portrayal (and memory and estate). There are some revelatory anecdotes featuring Carrey, Elton John, Hugh Hefner (who tossed Zmuda as Clifton out of a Playboy Mansion party) and others. There’s also plenty of amateur psychoanalyzing and lots of exhortation for Andy to return and reveal the hoax.
Whatever readers believe or don’t about Andy Kaufman, this book will confirm that particular “truth.”Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1940363059
Page Count: 256
Publisher: BenBella
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
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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