A perceptive, gritty portrayal of the frenzy of war and a father and son caught at its tumultuous center.
A gripping history of a family torn apart by political upheaval.
In this fresh contribution to the abundant biographies of Benjamin Franklin and histories of the American Revolution, poet, playwright, and biographer Epstein (The Ballad of Bob Dylan, 2011, etc.) focuses on the relationship between Franklin and his illegitimate son, William, who rose to become a political force in his own right. Epstein’s title refers both to William’s sorely tested loyalty to his father and unwavering loyalty to England as the Colonies erupted in rebellion and violence. Drawing on much unpublished correspondence as well as published works, the author constructs a fast-paced, vivid narrative with a host of characters whose appearance and personality he etches with deft concision. According to a close family friend, Franklin had been the loving, “intimate, and easy companion” of his son when William was a young man. Charming, “handsome, easy-going, more agreeable” than his father, William achieved success that eventually rankled Benjamin. Epstein notes “open, unabashed competition” by the time William was 40 and governor of New Jersey. However, it was not competition that caused their deep rift but rather their immersion in vastly different political worlds: William, in the Colonies, sought to “manage the volatile emotions” of rebellious protesters; Benjamin, in England, saw Parliament as “power-hungry, factious,” and corrupt and urged his countrymen “to stand firm, trusting in their own sense of justice,” even risking “a permanent break from the mother country.” Epstein is sympathetic to William’s desperate desire to quell dissent, actions that led to a year’s imprisonment in a squalid cell while his father basked in the warmth of celebrity in Paris, where he lived a luxurious life in a villa. What did Benjamin know, asks the author, about “that hell on earth,” the “war of desolation, the hangings and rapes and dismemberments,” the 10,000 refugees? Father and son eventually reconciled, but Franklin never really forgave William for what he considered betrayal.
A perceptive, gritty portrayal of the frenzy of war and a father and son caught at its tumultuous center.Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-345-54421-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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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