This biography of South Carolina politician Byrnes offers historical insight but ultimately descends into hagiography. Robertson traces James Byrnes's rise from poverty in his native Charleston, S.C., to the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Supreme Court, a tenure as so-called ``assistant president'' to FDR during WW II, his stint as secretary of state under Truman, and, finally, his governorship of South Carolina. Robertson (who has taught creative writing at Clemson Univ.) recounts Byrnes's special relationship with FDR and his great disappointment when Roosevelt, after leading Byrnes to believe that he would be his vice presidential running mate in 1944, excluded him from the ticket. He was deemed too antilabor, and his reputation as a racist was seen as a threat to the black vote for FDR in the North. Furthermore, Byrnes who had been born a Catholic, had converted to Protestantism, and this alienated both Catholics and Protestants. Thus Byrnes ``almost'' became president, but because of his political drawbacks, it was Harry Truman who garnered that prize. Byrnes topped off his career by successfully running for governor of his home state. He is remembered as a racist who did his best to fight the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. In his latter years, Byrnes was in the vanguard of Democrats backing Republican candidates before the GOP was acceptable in Dixie. Robertson's romanticizing of Byrnes borders on hero worship. He makes the hyperbolic statement that Byrnes had better political skills than FDR, who is considered by most historians to have been the country's master politician. Robertson's writing is also riddled with clichÇs, and redundancies clog the text. Although we learn much about Byrnes and the politics of his era, this work is, in the end, disappointing. Byrnes, an important figure, deserves a better biography.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-393-03367-8
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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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