A mind-boggling, sometimes stomach-churning glimpse of a profession that is far more demanding than TV’s glamorized version...
A “bone doctor’s” gritty, fascinating account of her challenging career analyzing skeletal remains to discover how people died, who they were, and even what they looked like.
Craig, the state forensic anthropologist for Kentucky since 1994, has grisly stories to tell that go way beyond her state’s borders. While a graduate student at the University of Tennessee—site of the infamous Body Farm, where outdoor decomposition of bodies is studied—she was sent to Waco, Texas, to help in the investigation into the disaster at the Branch Davidian compound. Her work there revealed that some members of the cult, including infants and the group’s leader, David Koresh, had been killed not by fire but by a point-blank shot to the head. After the Oklahoma City bombing, she was called in by the FBI to help identify a dismembered leg that had become a crucial part of Timothy McVeigh’s defense strategy, and after the destruction of the World Trade Center, she spent months in New York’s emergency morgue as a volunteer for the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team. However, it’s her cases as Kentucky’s “Boondock Bone Doc” that reveal the most about how a forensic anthropologist works in the field. In the backwoods, on the sides of mountain, on the banks of rivers, Craig recovers body parts and pieces together three-dimensional pictures that tell stories of violent deaths. Her images are vivid and homely: cleaning a skeleton is “something like deboning a rotten chicken, though of course on a much larger scale”; decomposed tissue resembles “chocolate pudding into which someone has stirred a few cups of chunky vomit,” and what she has to say about the huge number of maggots she encounters in corpses is not for the squeamish. Throughout, though, what stands out is Craig’s humanity. While the scientist focuses on the gruesome task at hand, she never forgets that what she’s dealing with was once a living human being. An unexpected bonus is the author’s account of her training for and work as a medical illustrator, her career before going back to school in her mid-40s to become a forensic anthropologist.
A mind-boggling, sometimes stomach-churning glimpse of a profession that is far more demanding than TV’s glamorized version of it.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-4000-4922-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
A highly readable account of how solid research and personal testing of self-help techniques saved a couple's marriage after...
Self-help advice and personal reflections on avoiding spousal fights while raising children.
Before her daughter was born, bestselling author Dunn (Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?: And Other Questions I Wish I Never Had to Ask, 2009, etc.) enjoyed steady work and a happy marriage. However, once she became a mother, there never seemed to be enough time, sleep, and especially help from her husband. Little irritations became monumental obstacles between them, which led to major battles. Consequently, they turned to expensive couples' therapy to help them regain some peace in life. In a combination of memoir and advice that can be found in most couples' therapy self-help books, Dunn provides an inside look at her own vexing issues and the solutions she and her husband used to prevent them from appearing in divorce court. They struggled with age-old battles fought between men and women—e.g., frequency of sex, who does more housework, who should get up with the child in the middle of the night, why women need to have a clean house, why men need more alone time, and many more. What Dunn learned via therapy, talks with other parents, and research was that there is no perfect solution to the many dynamics that surface once couples become parents. But by using time-tested techniques, she and her husband learned to listen, show empathy, and adjust so that their former status as a happy couple could safely and peacefully morph into a happy family. Readers familiar with Dunn's honest and humorous writing will appreciate the behind-the-scenes look at her own semi-messy family life, and those who need guidance through the rough spots can glean advice while being entertained—all without spending lots of money on couples’ therapy.
A highly readable account of how solid research and personal testing of self-help techniques saved a couple's marriage after the birth of their child.Pub Date: March 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-26710-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A miscellany of paternal pride (and frustration) darkened by the author’s increasing realizations of his mortality.
Ruminations and reminiscences of an author—now in his 70s—about fatherhood, writing, and death.
O’Brien (July, July, 2002, etc.), who achieved considerable literary fame with both Going After Cacciato (1978) and The Things They Carried (1990), returns with an eclectic assembly of pieces that grow increasingly valedictory as the idea of mortality creeps in. (The title comes from the author’s uncertainty about his ability to assemble these pieces in a single volume.) He begins and ends with a letter: The initial one is to his first son (from 2003); the terminal one, to his two sons, both of whom are now teens (the present). Throughout the book, there are a number of recurring sections: “Home School” (lessons for his sons to accomplish), “The Magic Show” (about his long interest in magic), and “Pride” (about his feelings for his sons’ accomplishments). O’Brien also writes often about his own father. One literary figure emerges as almost a member of the family: Ernest Hemingway. The author loves Hemingway’s work (except when he doesn’t) and often gives his sons some of Papa’s most celebrated stories to read and think and write about. Near the end is a kind of stand-alone essay about Hemingway’s writings about war and death, which O’Brien realizes is Hemingway’s real subject. Other celebrated literary figures pop up in the text, including Elizabeth Bishop, Andrew Marvell, George Orwell, and Flannery O’Connor. Although O’Brien’s strong anti-war feelings are prominent throughout, his principal interest is fatherhood—specifically, at becoming a father later in his life and realizing that he will miss so much of his sons’ lives. He includes touching and amusing stories about his toddler sons, about the sadness he felt when his older son became a teen and began to distance himself, and about his anguish when his sons failed at something.
A miscellany of paternal pride (and frustration) darkened by the author’s increasing realizations of his mortality.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-618-03970-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
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