A solid introduction to an interesting life, but nothing definitive about a pivotal figure in American culture.
Readable, once-over-lightly biography of “America’s first bona fide best-selling author.”
The dreamy son of a Manhattan merchant, Washington Irving (1783–1859) desultorily studied law but devoted most of his early 20s to travels financed by his indulgent older brothers and to drinking and general rowdiness with a close-knit band of pals. Their boyish high spirits, committed to paper in 1807 in a periodical called Salmagundi, won Irving local fame for his easy wit; he cemented his reputation with the gently satirical A History of New York in 1809. The death of his fiancée and a floundering brother in Liverpool sent him in 1815 to Europe, where he remained for 17 years, prompting charges from jealous rival James Fenimore Cooper that he was too busy sucking up to the European aristocracy to be a real American writer. But Irving held on to his American fans with The Sketch Book (1819–20), which contained his two most famous stories, “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and later published successful books about Columbus, the Alhambra and George Washington. He was economically secure and generally revered during his final years back home in America. He had helped the youthful United States see itself as a nation through the landscapes sketched in his graceful, lightweight essays and sketches. First-time author Jones, a former political speechwriter and current policy analyst, doesn’t provide much context to explain the writer’s importance to America’s fledgling literature, and he tries a bit too hard to bring Irving up-to-date: It’s not really necessary to know that land speculation was “the nineteenth-century equivalent of dot-com ventures,” nor are Jones’s occasional references to Irving’s “possible homosexuality” substantiated by anything except warm epistolary expressions of affection that were commonplace among male friends during that period. Still, his breezy approach suits his agreeable subject, who never took himself too seriously.
A solid introduction to an interesting life, but nothing definitive about a pivotal figure in American culture.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-55970-836-4
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2007
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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