An ultimately triumphant chronicle of faith, sustained and deepened by tragedy.
A woman’s faith helps her to cope with her diagnosed terminal illness in this debut devotional memoir.
On Oct. 8, 2007, Tarrant, then 55, was coming up on the five-year anniversary of her breast cancer diagnosis. But on this day, her oncologist told her that the disease she thought was cured had actually metastasized. Now, at stage 4, she was facing the real possibility of death. This memoir, she says, has two agendas: the first is to help others in her situation find hope; the other, “and most important of all,” she says, is to “help them find Jesus if they don’t know Him so that they, too, can live an irrationally happy life.” The mere fact that the author is alive to write this book satisfies the former. “Live the rest of life on this earth as the precious gift that it is....Enjoy what time is left to the max,” she encourages. However, Tarrant’s unflinching document of her treatment—including the “arsenal of drugs” she took, and their often debilitating side effects—is perhaps more valuable than sincerely written platitudes. She also addresses the psychological toll of the devastating discussions she had about her illness. For example, at one point, during a family conversation with her doctor, her son asked, “How long will I have my mom?” After receiving the answer, Tarrant thought, “There it was, finally out in the open—the number of years I had left to live.” However, her unquestioning faith in God sustained her throughout: “I must put all my trust and faith in Him,” she proclaims. This aspect of the book may keep secular readers from embracing it, as they may feel that it sometimes has a hectoring tone (“Get right with God. If you are not living a full and complete Christian life, now is the time to change”). It also might have been interesting if the author had provided more explanation of her trust in God as she wrestled with each setback, including a climactic, crushing blow. But when she affirms at one point that “I know that this truly is part of God’s plan,” that will be enough for many readers.
An ultimately triumphant chronicle of faith, sustained and deepened by tragedy.Pub Date: April 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4908-2557-1
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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