A searching, compassionate, and uplifting memoir.
Omega Institute co-founder Lesser (Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow, 2005) tells the story of the profound emotional journey that ensued after she became her sister’s bone marrow donor.
The first time the author’s sister, Maggie, was diagnosed with cancer, she beat the disease and went into remission. But seven years later, it returned with a vengeance. Doctors told Maggie that the only way she could survive the disease a second time was through a bone marrow transplant. When Lesser learned that she was her sister’s genetic match, she was overjoyed. But she also realized that donation—which would not guarantee that Maggie would live—would mean examining the tense relationship with her sister. “We [had] spent most of our lives circling around each other,” writes the author, “each of us feeling imperfect in the mirror of the other’s lives.” Both sisters began therapy to sort through the conflicting emotions they experienced in the shadow of Maggie's disease. Lesser learned that Maggie saw her as “the big sister…the smarter one, the one going places,” while she reveals that she envied Maggie for being the lovable sister who lived an authentic life. Realizing that neither was perfect, the sisters forgave each other. This opening of hearts in turn led to a deepening of the bond—made physical through the transfer of Lesser’s stem cells into Maggie’s body—they had with each other. Ultimately, the transplant did not save Maggie’s life. Yet rather than view this outcome as a tragedy, the author chose to understand it as a gift that not only expanded her heart, but also showed her that love was the most powerful “adhesive force” in the universe. Drawing on Zen philosophers like D.T. Suzuki and alternative medicine advocates like Deepak Chopra, Lesser offers a soulful blend of life lessons learned and spiritual wisdom that reads like a balm for the soul.
A searching, compassionate, and uplifting memoir.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-236763-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper Wave
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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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