An “only in America” story with Horatio Alger as a rapper and neo-soul singer.
An entertaining memoir that captures the voice of an artist who hasn’t necessarily accomplished enough to warrant the telling of his life story.
Musical memoirs have become a hot commodity, and Green is a brash and savvy-enough entertainer to know to strike while the iron is hot. He made his breakthrough as the singer of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” which he followed with the viral solo hit known to some as “Forget You.” He then parlayed that into TV exposure on The Voice. Even for those aware of his musical back story with the Goodie Mob, such a career might be covered in a long magazine profile. But if the ebullient entertainer born Thomas DeCarlo Burton is mainly a legend in his own mind, he seasons that legend with plenty of spice in a book that (written with journalist Wild) shows how, “in the epic journey that has been my life, there are good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains, beautiful princesses, shape-shifting mutants, and pretty much everything in between.” Green also provides an inspirational mandate: “I write this book not just to celebrate my own voice and to revel in my own success story, but to encourage the next generation of underdogs to listen closely to the voices in their own heads….May we all find our voices and keep rising together.” For all his grandiosity, CeeLo (who seems to be moving toward single-name status) is a funny guy with a colorful story to share, from his proto-gangster days as a petty criminal in his native Atlanta through his musical redemption. The most revelatory parts concern the creative tension in his teaming with Danger Mouse as Gnarls Barkley, “a couple of crazy mutants who met in the dark and created a spark of something bigger than both of us.” His showbiz ambitions culminate in a Vegas review, “CeeLo Is Loberace,” inspired not only by Liberace, but Elton John.
An “only in America” story with Horatio Alger as a rapper and neo-soul singer.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4555-1667-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2013
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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