A positive remembrance and a highly useful guide.
A debut memoir by a woman born with a congenital heart defect.
Just after Flaherty-Kizer was born in 1957, a nurse told her mother, “She’ll never live.” They said that she had a heart problem, but nobody knew exactly what it was. Not until she applied for and received acceptance to the U.S. Naval Academy, contingent upon her passing the medical exam, did she learn that she had something far more serious than the mere heart “murmur” her pediatrician surmised. A heart specialist explained that she had Ebstein’s Anomaly, in which “the tricuspid valve—the valve between the chambers on the right side of the heart—does not form correctly and thus doesn’t work properly.” She would need annual checkups but wouldn’t need surgery in the immediate future—unless she wanted to have children, because her heart wouldn’t be able to bear the strain of childbirth. She decided at that point that she would choose to adopt when the time came. Although she and her husband, Keith, were committed to a healthy lifestyle to set an example for their two adopted children, the busy schedule of everyday life caused her to stop going for annual heart monitoring. By 2012, her heart had begun to deteriorate, and two years after that, she was told that she needed surgery, which she had in May 2015; a difficult recuperation followed. In lucid, conversational prose, Flaherty-Kizer shares details of the lead-up to the operation and her recovery—including some unexpectedly funny moments, as when her hospital roommate, hindered by clutter, didn’t make it in time to the bathroom: “I rang for the nurse,” she writes, “and merely said, ‘Cleanup in aisle 8,’ ” and the two women convulsed with laughter. In this way, the author shows how an upbeat attitude helped her make her way through a very hard time in her life. The most valuable element of this slim volume, however, is its abundance of advice, such as how to select a doctor and deal with insurance companies. The author also offers additional resources and full-throated encouragement for those facing similar ordeals.
A positive remembrance and a highly useful guide.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63491-382-9
Page Count: 110
Publisher: Booklocker.com, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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