Involving memoir of a woman caught with her husband behind enemy lines after the fall of Manila in WW II. Perhaps the least celebrated of prisoners-of-war, civilian internees nonetheless have their own extraordinary tales to tell of courage and despair. Here, Van Sickle describes how she and her husband survived three terrible years under Japanese occupation. When the enemy marched into Manila, only four weeks after Pearl Harbor, the totally unprepared Allied population, mostly American, was forcibly moved to the grounds of Santo Tomas University, the only space in the city large enough to contain them. ``How utterly helpless one becomes with the loss of freedom,'' says Van Sickle. Conditions ranged from mediocre to horrendous. Up to 70 people shared each room with bedbugs, scorpions, and centipedes; four toilets served 600 women. Yet soon stores opened in the camp, selling everything from children's toys to cigarettes. The civilian Japanese overseers kept a loose rein on things; hope remained. Then Van Sickle's husband grew dreadfully sick, from asthma and beriberi. Typhoons struck, escapees were brutally beaten and then executed; the Japanese military took over the camp and instituted a clampdown. Van Sickle recounts the petty grievances—largely arising from lack of space—that brought decent people to blows, and the small kindnesses that saved lives and souls. Her tale becomes that of the archetypal prisoner: a lament for freedom lost and a jeremiad against the captor. When liberation comes in 1945, Van Sickle expresses no regret as the Japanese captain of the guards is hacked apart by camp survivors. At the same time, she's appalled by the ill-treatment afforded American GIs of Japanese descent, who were sometimes spat upon by fellow soldiers. Her plea is for ``the just rights of others, whoever they are,'' and her experience gives it weight. A valuable addition to the history of WW II.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-89733-379-9
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Academy Chicago
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1992
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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