Here is Passages II, an upbeat, fact-filled, people-rich, but ultimately unsatisfying sequel to the 1976 bestseller. Sheehy's earlier Passages borrowed from Erik Erikson and Daniel Levinson of Yale to popularize the theory that the lives of adults as well as children are marked by stages of development, such as the Trying Twenties and Catch-30, until age 50, when it's smooth sailing. Well, Sheehy is in her 50s now and encountering some rough waters, so she's added a few more stagesthe Flaming Fifties, the Uninhibited Eightiesto her earlier scenario. Moreover, she declares, ``There is a revolution in the life cycle.'' Puberty arrives sooner, and adolescence lasts longer. ``First Adulthood'' begins around 30, segueing into ``Second Adulthood,'' which lasts from about ages 45 to 85. During that time, women struggle with menopauseand perhaps, she suggests provocatively, so do men. Both reframe their lives, women pushing the envelope on their careers and men often confronting corporate downsizing. Age 50 is also fraught with crises of mortality and meaning, giving passage to the Serene Sixties and Sage Seventies. Throughout are rich interviews with both working class and white collar/professional men and women copingnot always successfullywith the stresses of growing older. The flaw in this book lies in the very reason Sheehy wrote it. Labeling generations (``Silent,'' ``Vietnam,'' ``Endangered'') and relabeling Erikson's Age of Generativity as the Age of Integrity mask the fact that life cycle changes are happening so fast that it's too soon to develop a perspective. Sheehy's confidence in the efficacy of exercise, a healthy lifestyle, and an optimistic attitude to hold back the effects of aging is well placed. But these constitute only one step in combating society's aversion to people with wrinkles and walkers, to say nothing of the millions of elderly living below the poverty line. A mix of inventive speculation and solid informationon impotence and menopause among the latterbut its impact is diluted by horoscope-like predictions and (though Sheehy surveyed thousands of people) a penchant for presenting anecdote as evidence. (Author tour)
Pub Date: June 21, 1995
ISBN: 0-394-58913-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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