Low-down, funny and as bracing as a body slam.
Imagine that This is Spinal Tap was about wrestling—and true.
Heavyweight champion Jericho recounts his bumpy rise to the top of professional wrestling in brash, funny, compulsively readable prose. He gives a rambunctious tour through bargain-basement wrestling “schools” that function more like medieval torture dungeons; the rough-and-tumble Mexican and German circuits, where his life was repeatedly threatened at gunpoint; the bizarre Japanese wrestling culture, with its silent audiences and fondness for outlandish gimmicks; shady promoters more interested in copping feels than paying guarantees; and a gut-churning selection of the world’s worst hotel rooms. Nicknamed “Lion Heart,” Jericho exhibited from childhood a ferocious drive to wrestle, and his single-minded pursuit of this demanding, dangerous, often seedy and always ridiculous career is inspiring and frankly amazing—ripped-off, injured or disillusioned, he never lost faith in his beloved sport and, more incredibly, retained his sense of humor. Jericho differs from many of wrestling’s other top performers in his seemingly complete lack of ego. With self-deprecation and mordant wit, he admits to sexual snafus, humiliating gaffes in protocol (pro wrestling is governed by an unspoken code of conduct as Byzantine as that of a Regency court) and at least one horrific bout of diarrhea. The cheerfully crude author clearly enjoyed the sybaritic excesses of life on the road, but his essential decency and humble gratitude are detectable throughout, particularly in passages addressing his mother’s paralysis—ironically the result of just the sort of bad fall Jericho risked daily—and the tragic accidents that ended the lives of friends and peers. The cannily structured memoir focuses on Jericho’s early career in various small-time outfits. He saves the story of his joining wrestling’s major leagues for the book’s final pages. A born storyteller, he understands that losers are funnier than winners, struggle is more compelling than success and a happy ending is all the sweeter after a miserable beginning.
Low-down, funny and as bracing as a body slam.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-446-58006-9
Page Count: 412
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2007
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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