Gentle, inclusive ruminations sure to strike a chord.
An intriguing spiritual memoir from an unusual woman.
Centered on Thayne’s near-death experience following a car accident when she was in her 60s, this autobiography contains thematic chapters that explore her changing beliefs about mortality through meditations on family, language and other daily concepts. As a Mormon grandmother, parts of Thayne’s life—her long marriage, religious devotion and large family—are seemingly typical for someone of her generation. However, Thayne is also a poet and writer, weaving many of her poems and other writings into the body of this work. Often, Thayne describes the two roles of homemaker and author as being at odds with one another, at least within her own mind. In addition to her active, fulfilling involvement in the Mormon Church, she characterizes her writing life as almost a personal struggle. In a major theme of the book, Thayne seeks to resolve the internal conflict she feels when torn between her vocation and her concerns about meeting outside expectations. Interestingly, she addresses this internal conflict by looking both into her Mormon heritage and out toward other spiritual traditions and lifestyles. Discussing her parents and grandparents, Thayne reveals their warmth and the absence of doctrinaire beliefs in her childhood home. Her description of “everyday Mormonism” could be compared to the “women’s Islam” for Muslim writers like Fatima Mernissi and Leila Ahmed. However, in her search for enlightenment, Thayne isn’t content merely focusing on previous generations of her own family. Instead, she visits healers, helps bring to light the work of artists with AIDS and recognizes many influences from outside her own community. As a result, she’s a complex, evolving narrator, grappling slowly with her own expectations and the challenges of life. Her meditative, fluid narrative might not satisfy readers looking for an eventful, action-oriented story, but readers interested in the optimistic pursuit of spiritual development shouldn’t miss this one.
Gentle, inclusive ruminations sure to strike a chord.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-1936236930
Page Count: 272
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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