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E STREET SHUFFLE

THE GLORY DAYS OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND

Heylin’s attempt to deromanticize an icon is admirable, but the finished product comes across as sullen and lackluster.

A new biography of The Boss and his incendiary band.

For those fans who have followed Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band from their heyday in the 1970s and ’80s, this overview will undoubtedly stoke controversy. While veteran rock journalist Heylin (All the Madmen: A Journey to the Dark Side of English Rock, 2011, etc.) painstakingly resurrects a bevy of dates and details from Springsteen’s forays into the studio, it quickly becomes apparent that the author doesn’t hold the fawning view of his subject that previous biographers have displayed. Depicting Springsteen less as a proletarian humanist and more as a perfectionist workhorse who wasted countless hours committing songs to tape while disbanding and reforming the band at his whim, Heylin seems intent on puncturing an American rock myth. Indeed, the book often reads as a cautionary manual on how not to approach the recording process, with the author laying the blame on Springsteen’s obsessive-compulsive revising of songs as well as the lenient attitude of his producer and yes man, Jon Landau. The phenomenally successful Born in the USA tour paradoxically comes off as the nadir of Springsteen’s career, as intimate venues for die-hard fans gave way to stadiums for picnic-goers who came to hear only the hits. After officially breaking up the band in 1989, Springsteen recorded a series of mediocre albums, then took to the road with the E Street Band again in 1999. More successful than ever, the band is currently enjoying a second renaissance, but even that happy ending can’t dispel the aroma of tepid disapproval that this book emits.

Heylin’s attempt to deromanticize an icon is admirable, but the finished product comes across as sullen and lackluster.

Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-670-02662-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012

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WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...

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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

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

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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