Adds to the literature on the Roosevelts and Whitneys, but the father-son relationship holds more interest than the romance.
This dual biography recounts the lives and doomed courtship of Quentin Roosevelt, youngest son of Theodore, and Flora Payne Whitney.
Biographer Bishop (The Lion and the Journalist: The Unlikely Friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and Joseph Bucklin Bishop, 2011) examines letters, cablegrams, diaries and other sources—some still unpublished—to tell how these two scions of influential American families grew up, met and fell in love. Quentin (1897-1918) was the irrepressible youngest child in the large Roosevelt household. Energetic and curious, he had a deep interest in engines and machines (especially aeroplanes) and loved fiction and poetry. Flora (1897-1986), daughter of one of the wealthiest families in America, was raised largely by governesses among luxury and privilege. Bishop traces their relationship “from awkward adolescent acquaintanceship to impassioned love” through their engagement and Quentin’s death in an aerial battle. Well-written and novelistic, the book also brings to light unpublished material, helping augment the stories of two prominent American families. But Bishop’s emphasis on a year and a half of “exemplary love…authentic and full-bodied” between two 20-year-olds has a weak foundation. Reading their letters, there is little to distinguish their relationship from that of any other young couple separated by war, missing each other and fearing for the future. “I love you, dearest, and always shall” is something any lonely airman might write. More fruitful are Bishop’s speculations about how damaging Theodore Roosevelt’s high expectations for his sons were when combined with “a distorted, romanticized view of war.” (An interesting comparison here might have been made to Kipling and his son.) Sometimes, though, Bishop seems to romanticize war himself; he quotes—with no sense of irony or history—the tag “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (it is sweet and right to die for your country) after describing the Great War memorial tablet at Quentin’s school.
Adds to the literature on the Roosevelts and Whitneys, but the father-son relationship holds more interest than the romance.Pub Date: April 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1495253836
Page Count: 276
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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