Caregivers may find solace in Sykes’ poignant memories.
Sykes’ debut memoir tells of the seven years she spent caring for her ailing, elderly mother.
The author was catapulted into the role of caregiver when her vibrant mother suffered macular degeneration, which eventually led to blindness. Sykes’ role became even more difficult when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Meanwhile, her mother had to cope with permanently leaving her sister in Florida—as well as the independence of her own condo—to live in much smaller institutional spaces near Sykes’ Massachusetts home. As the author became an advocate for her mother’s care, the two lost the carefree mother-daughter relationship they once had. Still, Sykes was determined to enjoy some aspects of their changing roles, and she ultimately learned to feel privileged to be her mother’s caregiver. There are some horror stories here; in one facility, for example, the author’s mother was physically and emotionally abused. However, Sykes also offers many uplifting moments; on her mother’s 90th birthday, for example, she was able to hold her first great-grandchild. Later, Sykes fulfills her mother’s dying request for a day at the beach, resulting in a beautiful mother-daughter memory. Readers shouldn’t expect a step-by-step elder-care guide or in-depth discussions of legal terms in this gentle narrative. However, there are some useful bits of information about nursing-home residents, such as their need for structured routine; for example, when Sykes hired companions to alleviate her mother’s loneliness, it turned out to be too stressful to have so many new people coming and going. Sykes also offers some worthwhile questions to ask when considering an elder-care facility, such as whether the institution has a physical therapy room and therapists on staff. The book also contains an exhaustive list of quotes and affirmations, including these words that Sykes spoke to her mother: “You have spent a lifetime giving to others. This is the time in your life to celebrate receiving from others.”
Caregivers may find solace in Sykes’ poignant memories.Pub Date: April 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1494224486
Page Count: 184
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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