An exasperatingly inept biography of the other Italian-American singer from Hoboken. Ten years younger than Frank Sinatra, Roselli, though enormously popular with the Italian-American community, has lived in that shadow of and—if this screed is credible—been kept from making it “big” by Sinatra and the mob. Novelist Evanier (Red Love, 1991) depends almost entirely on hearsay and the oral testimony of Roselli and some of his associates. He cites the occasional book for background, such as Richard Gambino’s Blood of My Blood, but relies heavily on newspaper accounts, concert reviews, and album liner notes. Roselli started singing in Hoboken saloons before the age of 10. Sinatra, whose family lived down the street, was “amazed at my two-octave range,” says Roselli. The two shared a stage just once, in 1937, at the dedication of a local park, when Sinatra was 22 and Roselli 12. Throughout the book, Evanier recounts slights and snubs; he reiterates Roselli’s claim that his refusal to sing at a charity benefit put on by Sinatra’s mother, Dolly, got his blackballed. There’s no documentation of this and what little corroboration he offers comes from the often inarticulate recollections of Roselli’s pals. While Evanier touts Roselli as one who defied the mob, he also outlines his career-long involvement with them (he sang at John Gotti Jr.’s wedding). Evanier recounts the singer’s hassles with everyone from Ed Sullivan to Merv Griffin to New York’s WNEW, the radio station that “yanked” his records at the behest of either Sinatra or the Gambino family. At the same time that he presents this as evidence as to why Roselli never “made it,” he writes of $100,000 concert fees and million-dollar mansions. It makes no sense. As unpleasant, mercurial, and contradictory as Roselli would appear, even he deserves better than this account of his career.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-374-19927-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1998
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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