A father tells timeless, funny, and honest stories of raising boys.
A father shares stories of his childhood and those of his two sons.
McGlynn (A Door in the Ocean, 2012, etc.) was not expecting to become a father when he did. When he and his wife found out their first child was on the way, he gulped nervously and moved into the role with a mixture of trepidation and elation. The author gathers tales of his two young sons and of his own childhood into an entertaining, humorous, and enlightening series of essays on fatherhood. Readers learn of his longing for his father, who divorced his mother and moved away when the author was 12. Suddenly, his father’s physical presence was reduced to a few weeks during the year, so McGlynn learned snippets of wisdom on growing into adulthood over the telephone, a touching memory of a pre-digital era. The author also shares moments of pride: watching his son at his first swim meet, supporting him at basketball games, and seeing him use the author’s old skateboard. McGlynn doesn’t ignore his struggles with his children: trying to discipline them when they used profanity, told their classmates that Santa was dead, or would not go to sleep at night. Throughout, the author’s love for his children is palpable, as is his feeling of achievement at having done the best that he could regardless of the situation. He and his wife have favored a smaller home in order to have more money for travel, giving up material goods for the chance to create lasting memories with their children, and he hopes they appreciate that approach as they grow into adults and have their own children. Overall, the book is neither shallow nor profound but a pleasing blend of humor and humility that shows what it means to be a father in America today.
A father tells timeless, funny, and honest stories of raising boys.Pub Date: June 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64009-039-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
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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