Less a literary convocation than an A-list gab-fest, this volume is filled over the brim with three things Capote cared deeply about: gossip, name-dropping, and himself. An oral biography (on the lines of Plimpton's Edie) may seem superfluous for someone as relentlessly self-publicizing as Capote. Over the course of this conversational parade of witnesses to his sensational career, however, the familiar figures of the elfin young author of Other Voices, Other Rooms and the aged, substance-abusing author of the socialite-scourging Answered Prayers are shattered, or at least chipped away at, by the sheer variety of impressions, anecdotes, and reminisences about an inarguably remarkable, mercurial individual. Despite the recycled high points—arm-wrestling Bogie during Beat the Devil, going head-to-head with Norman Mailer on television, etc.—a multifarious, almost Proustian characterization emerges. Naturally there are the characteristic detractions of Gore Vidal and Mailer (``A ballsy little guy. But . . . those balls got swollen''), the slightly apologetic approbations of Carol Marcus and Joanne Carson, and innumerable opinions in between, from the likes of John Knowles, William F. Buckley, Kurt Vonnegut, the detectives from In Cold Blood, his betrayed jet set, and Plimpton himself. Plimpton has adroitly edited this mass of eyewitness accounts, conflicting testimony, and hearsay into a fairly complete narrative with a seductive aura. Only occasionally does he gloss over extended unpleasantness, such as the depths of Capote's destructive affair with John O'Shea, a married suburban banker; but he also gives space to smaller voices, including the strangely fond account by O'Shea's daughter Kerry (rechristened Kate Harrington by Capote for her teenage modeling career) of the avuncular Pygmalion figure in her life. Capote's flamboyant, fascinating life as related by other voices, other views. (60 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Dec. 8, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-23249-7
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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