An incisive, nuanced inquiry into gender and body.
A searing, deeply personal story about the author’s emotional journey of self-discovery.
“This is the question of my body and my story about it: is it just mine?” So writes Whitney (Creative Writing/Goddard Coll.; Ghost Box, 2014) early on in the narrative, which is fragmented, elliptical, and consistently provocative. The author tells their story in three parts, each beautifully poised and composed of brief paragraphs, some only one short sentence. Piecemeal, like snapshots, Whitney slowly reveals an early life of uncertainty, pain, and suffering: “I grew up knowing fear as an inheritance of femininity.” The story washes back and forth in time as the author reflects on their sexuality and family: Mom and Hank, two brothers, Tye and Gunnar; and Grammy. Along the way, Whitney interjects bits of literature and psychology, wisdom gleaned from a variety of sources, including Freud, Lacan, Allen Ginsberg, Johanna Hedva, Robert J. Stoller, Luce Irigaray, and Eli Clare. Mom is the key to this story. “As a kid,” writes Whitney, “I was a flame in the corner lighting up all of Mom’s mistakes.” Chronicling their mother’s drinking, being physically abused, splitting with her husband, and moving around as she tried to raise her family, Whitney does a fine job uncovering their complex relationship. “This book,” they write, “isn’t about individuation or even coming of age…it’s about ways to find a response, to respond to her.” About Grammy, the author writes, “I love this woman for throwing me into deep water….My heritage is her hopefulness and the complexity of a body that looks, in parts, like hers.” The author recounts adolescent years filled with questions, fears, drinking, drugs, cutting, boys, girls, and homelessness—as well as a bad reaction to testosterone. Upon meeting other trans kids, writes Whitney, “I was the happiest around them I’d ever been.” In 2011, the author underwent breast removal surgery: “I’ve edited my body, mixed my skin around with some money.”
An incisive, nuanced inquiry into gender and body.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-944211-76-9
Page Count: 200
Publisher: McSweeney’s
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
