Pedestrian account of the investigation and trial of an unusually monstrous parricide. On March 31, 1984, Judias Buenoano was convicted of first- degree murder, and is now on Florida's death row. Buenoano poisoned two husbands and her son; when arsenic left the boy only partially paralyzed, she took him fishing and shoved him (he wore steel leg braces weighing 50 pounds) out of the boat. She then blew up her boyfriend in his car—the crime that led to her arrest. Shortly before killing her victims, she took out multiple life-insurance policies on them, and for 12 years evaded discovery by moving to new communities. Anderson and McGehee, an N.Y.C. husband-and-wife writing-producing team, re-create the story through a chronicle- -assembled through interviews and court and medical records—of the work of Ted Chamberlain, the Pensacola detective who made the case against the killer. Buenoano is an interesting murderess, and the authors vividly re-create the milieu in which she operated. Their invented dialogue, however, is wooden when supplying narrative detail (``The victim, a John Gentry, white male, thirty-six, had already been taken to Sacred Heart Hospital...'') and clichÇd when used to convey personality (``That's mighty white of you buddy''). Through this clumsy treatment, Chamberlain comes off as a brooding Neanderthal. Since Buenoano was an inept killer and making the case against her was a routine assembling of evidence, the real interest in her story is psychological: One wishes that instead of padding their book with court testimony (more than 100 pages), the authors had probed deeper into Buenoano's background. Buenoano's madness harks back to Victorian England, when coldblooded and elaborately schemed murders of families by a spouse were more common; even contrasted to those, the crime here is particularly heinous. A book that students of murder will want to have despite its flaws. (Eight pages of photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-8184-0542-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1991
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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