A distinguished addition to the recent run of outstanding antebellum histories and biographies.
A comprehensive biography of Lincoln’s political idol, the man said to have declared, “I had rather be right than be President.”
The breathtaking scope of Henry Clay’s career on the national stage surely accounts for the unique distinction accorded him at death (1777–1852). The first American to lie in state in the Capitol’s Rotunda, the Kentuckian transformed the House Speakership into a powerful office. As a diplomat, he helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, later served as John Quincy Adams’s Secretary of State, and was part of the Great Triumvirate that included Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun. A constantly defeated presidential candidate, Clay’s adherence to staid tradition and a middle course proved no match for irresistible national impulses arising in the Age of Jackson. David and Jeanne Heidler (History/Colorado State Univ.-Pueblo and History/United States Air Force Academy; Daily Lives of Civilians in Wartime Early America, 2007, etc.) cover these political high watermarks in illuminating detail, but the beauty and strength of this biography is the full-blooded portrait of the man that accounts for the devotion Clay inspired and the hatreds he aroused. “Prince Hal” to his admirers and “the Judas of the West” (for his alleged part in the “Corrupt Bargain” that gave Adams the presidency) to his detractors, Clay was a powerful orator and convivial raconteur. Notwithstanding frequent, debilitating illnesses, he traveled widely, maneuvered constantly, survived two duels, fathered 11 children and bred racehorses and innovative crops on his slave-operated estate. The authors carefully examine Clay’s tortured slavery straddle—he often publicly declared the institution’s immorality—placing his views in context, but forthrightly acknowledging the Great Compromiser’s poignant inability to resolve the internal inconsistencies of his own position, attributing the failure to “a fundamental flaw in an otherwise good and decent man.”
A distinguished addition to the recent run of outstanding antebellum histories and biographies.Pub Date: May 18, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6726-8
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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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