Winner of 11 PGA tournaments between 1963 and 1971, Beard, whose golf game and life later ``went to pieces'' because of alcoholism, joined the money-rich Senior Tour in 1989. Here, with the help of Sports Illustrated writer Garrity, he records his every golf shot—and stray thought—on the 1991 circuit. Despite a second-place finish in the 1989 Senior Open, Beard has not become a big money-winner among the 50-and-over pros. The 1991 Senior Tour hosted 42 events with a total purse of $24 million. Beard took home $150,000 in 23 events; Jack Nicklaus, ``the best player who ever lived,'' won $343,734 in just five. The big money, Beard emphasizes, is not shelled out for quality golf or some notion of fierce competition: The ``Senior Tour is built on nostalgia,'' plain and simple, with spectators paying to watch old pros such as Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Chi Chi Rodriguez, and Sam Snead play together one more time. Often controversial, Beard, who writes a column for Golf World magazine, profiles some of his peers and discusses long-standing rivalries and often petty disputes; grouses about playing ``outings,'' pro- ams for charity for which the pros are paid; complains about caddie fees; and gives a lot of space to describing golf he's watched on TV. A recovering alcoholic, he attends from one to three AA meetings a week and sees a sports psychologist: ``When I play badly I see myself as a bad person.'' His worries about his swing and his confidence are duly noted in the epilogue: ``[my] nervousness and fear jump off the pages.'' And straying yet further from the links, he feels compelled to share even his views on evolution and creation. Fine when Beard stays on the golf course; preachy and self- indulgent when he doesn't.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-02-508060-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 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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