A wake-up call about the abusive potential of Ritalin—and a searing account of a long, deadly dalliance with destruction.
Generational spokesperson Wurtzel (Prozac Nation, 1994, etc.) pens a claustrophobic but surprisingly moving account of her battle with drug addiction.
Like so many contemporary memoirists, Wurtzel celebrates the self and its attendant woes, frequently irritating with her relentless recording of every emotion and reaction, as well as her over-reliance on the personal pronoun. The book begins slowly as she describes how, in 1996, temporarily living in Florida to complete Bitch (1998), she began abusing Ritalin. It had been prescribed to curb her intake of illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine, but she missed the ritual of snorting drugs. So Wurtzel cut her pills in half, extracted the powder, and—presto!—swapped one addiction for another. She connived to get more pills prescribed, compulsively pulled hair out of her legs until she developed infected sores, got arrested for shoplifting, and started snorting coke again. Her behavior became even more manic and erratic back in New York, where she finally holed up in her publisher’s office to finish her book, then checked into a rehab clinic in Connecticut. There, she fell in love with an alcoholic fellow patient and managed to clean up, but within days of checking out, she was back on drugs. Again, Wurtzel vividly details this downward spiral of self-destructive behavior: she flubbed or missed interviews during her book tours, alienated her friends, had an abortion. Somehow she survived and began to take charge of her addiction—a change that redeems her story as well, as its author becomes less of an arrogant, whiny brat and more of a sympathetic adult seasoned by adversity. Wurtzel joined a recovery program for narcotic abusers, attended meetings regularly, and is now not only clean but for the first time ever able to say that she’s happy.
A wake-up call about the abusive potential of Ritalin—and a searing account of a long, deadly dalliance with destruction.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2002
ISBN: 0-7432-2330-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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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