Unmarred by self-pity, an arresting story that women and men suffering from heart disease will find, well, heartening.
A commanding chronicle of a year in a woman’s recovery from an unexpected and near-fatal heart attack.
Not only was Deborah Heffernan relatively young, only 44, but she had never smoked, she ate her fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, she maintained a healthy weight, and her family had no history of heart disease. Moreover, she had a loving husband, good friends, and a successful career. But there she was in yoga class, pressure crushing her chest. “I’m having a heart attack,” she told her teacher. Within minutes, the EMS was there, transporting her to a hospital and bypass surgery, while her family and friends stood a death watch. Heffernan did not die, but her life and the lives of everyone around her changed as she slowly worked her way back to health, with a defibrillator implanted to monitor every beat of the half a heart she now lived with. Her recovery, from her first hesitant walk from hospital bed to bathroom to a vacation in the Alaskan bush a year later, is described in sections that mirror the change of seasons. It encompasses longer and longer walks in the Maine woods, yoga, massage, and psychotherapy for her and her husband. It also involves a long and sometimes painful exploration of why, given her remarkably healthy lifestyle. Long years of hidden stress, going back to her mother’s death 30 years before and culminating in a job that found her living out of suitcases was her answer. The damage will never be undone, and a heart transplant may be in her future. On the positive side, Heffernan’s medical crisis mended years of strained family relationships, and she has learned to find significance in even the most casual encounters. Her personal tale is interspersed with salient information about heart disease, including the fact that it is the number one cause of death among American women, more than all cancers combined.
Unmarred by self-pity, an arresting story that women and men suffering from heart disease will find, well, heartening.Pub Date: April 4, 2002
ISBN: 0-7432-2922-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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