Frank, well-written, and memorable. A companion to Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead as a warts-and-all, unromantic look at life...
An eye-widening, fascinating memoir of a young man’s sentimental education in the fine arts of infiltrating “denied areas,” blowing things up, slashing a few throats, and otherwise visiting mayhem on the bad guys.
Now a Hollywood screenwriter (The Jackal, Hard Target, and, of course, Navy SEALS), 40-something Pfarrer had the usual longhaired, dope-smoking, misspent youth of the ’70s. When his Navy officer dad exiled him to military school, he became born-again tough, and, after trying his hand at civilian life, decided to sign up for the service with the demand that he be put on a SEAL team. For his sins, he got the assignment, enduring training meant to weed out all but a small percentage of applicants. Those who survive spend the rest of their careers being constantly tested, evaluated, and sent into dangerous places. Pfarrer explains that SEALs are something like the Army’s Green Berets—only, of course, tougher and better in every way—but far fewer in number: “although the exact number of SEALs operational at any one time is classified,” he gamely writes, “I can say that our organization is considerably smaller than the Hells Angels.” (Later he writes that the total number of SEALs to have served since WWII is under 10,000.) The operations Pfarrer participated in and here describes are certainly hair-raising, whether storming the airplane carrying the Palestinian hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro (and nearly provoking a firefight with Italian troops in the bargain) or working behind the lines in “Wallyworld,” slang for Lebanon, where, he writes, “we took what pleasure we could in not being shelled every day.” Pfarrer writes proudly but without false bravado, even as he admits that he feels no guilt for having killed. “There are some people,” he grimly notes, “who need to go to hell and stay there.”
Frank, well-written, and memorable. A companion to Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead as a warts-and-all, unromantic look at life under arms.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2004
ISBN: 1-4000-6036-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
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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