by Coleman Dowell ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 14, 1993
Torso of an autobiography by novelist/songwriter Dowell (The Houses of Children, 1987, etc.), found among his papers after his 1985 suicide. Two chapters first appeared in the magazine Bomb. Autobiography was not Dowell's strong mode, states his novelist friend Edmund White in a foreword here: ``This unfinished book isn't quite the right vehicle for his genius. His novels, with their black pools of consciousness, are the best form for reflecting the white filigreed architecture of his inventive mind.'' After rising to sergeant-major in the Kentucky National Guard, which he left for a New York TV job as a songwriter/lyricist, Dowell found far less success writing musicals and never quite landed a hit on Broadway or off. Following several failures, he turned to the novel and, in the States at least, had an equally difficult time, even while gaining a cult following. Much space herein is given over to his bad reviews (when he was reviewed), with Kirkus singled out at length for gay-bashing and ``prejudice, inattention, a kind of resident viciousness [and]...macho femininity.'' In the introduction by Linda K. and John R. Kuehl, moreover, Kirkus is misquoted as having begun its review of Dowell's White on Black on White with: ``There is no doubt that this book is the worst that I have been given to review...'' (the review actually began, ``A melodrama about racism and sexuality...''). The present book has its pirouettes, with Tennessee Williams lauding Dowell's first musical comedy, Haymarket, as a ``ravishing work of art,'' then utterly forgetting Dowell after a three-day bender with him. Others who get harsh treatment include lyricist John Latouche (``His ego could have outfitted a Sicilian village composed of Mafia chieftains''); producer David Merrick, for his allegedly forked tongue; photographer Carl Van Vechten; and Baroness Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen). Plenty of purple raisins, but this cake never rises.
Pub Date: June 14, 1993
ISBN: 1-56478-022-8
Page Count: 165
Publisher: Dalkey Archive
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
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by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
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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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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