A grounded and consistently absorbing biography.
A dual biography of entertainment legends Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson that explores their individual careers and personal lives leading up to and including their 25-year friendship.
There was no end to the media coverage shadowing Taylor and Jackson throughout much of their lives. In this exhaustively researched new book, Bogle (Heat Wave: The Life and Career of Ethel Waters, 2011, etc.) revisits some of the familiar details but with a fresh and fair-minded perspective. His intent is not to expose startling new facts or dish on the more lurid rumors but rather to provide some clarity regarding their more vulnerable human qualities. The author devotes the first two-thirds of the book to their individual stories leading up to their first encounter. Through alternating chapters, he traces how both had achieved fame, along with the associated consequences, at very early stages in their lives; each was to remain in the increasingly bright though frequently harsh spotlight for the rest of their lives, as masters and victims of their stardom. Taylor attracted attention onscreen through memorable performances in such films as A Place in the Sun (1951) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and off-screen through her numerous marriages and love affairs, along with multiple ailments and life-threatening illnesses. She later found her most satisfying work through her efforts promoting AIDS awareness and research as co-founder of the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Jackson experienced immediate fame as lead singer of the Jackson 5 and later achieved record-breaking triumphs as a solo artist with his many hit albums. Yet controversy stalked him throughout his later career with reports of child molestation, drug use, and threats of financial ruin. Their meeting in 1984 would prove a highpoint for each, quickly establishing a mutual devotion that would serve to nourish their lives throughout their remaining years. Devoted fans of either star may be familiar with much of this material, but they will appreciate the balance and compassion underscoring Bogle’s treatment.
A grounded and consistently absorbing biography.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4516-7697-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
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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