her magic: listen to her Carnegie Hall album in the dark for that.
Apr. 2000 ISBN:
A corker of a biography that reveals Judy Garland as a peerless artist careening wildly through a life that could have ended even sooner than it did. Biographer Clarke (Capote, 1988) notes Frances Ethel ("Baby") Gumm's early rise, moving steadily from a boffo solo on a vaudeville stage at two years old to an MGM contract a decade later. As Judy Garland (a name she, not the studio, chose), she dazzled in her early movies (including The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, and the Andy Hardy series) and became "Metro's prime asset" by the late 1940s. As a female vocalist, her inimitable blend of vulnerability and longing ("like a woman carrying a torch for Valentino," said George Jessel) culminated in history-making performances at the London Palladium and Carnegie Hall. By her 20s, though, she was already dependent on pills, had attempted suicide, was treated for mental exhaustion, and had searched for the right man through affairs with Tyrone Power, Joseph Mankiewicz, Orson Welles, and Yul Brynner—among others. Her husbands also abounded: Billy Rose (whose baby Judy reluctantly aborted), Vincente Minnelli (discovered in a homosexual embrace at their home), Sid Luft, and Mickey Deans. Mother Ethel makes an appearance, too, grooming her daughter for stardom yet denying her love. By portraying Garland as a multifaceted individual rather than MGM pawn or sad pill popper, Clarke separates Judy the person from Judy the icon. But while the meticulous reporting impresses (and will likely result in a deeper appreciation of Garland’s career), its immediate effect is to deaden the shock of her death by drug overdose in 1969. Clarke’s closing image, outside the funeral home, does not evoke unity with the bystanders there so much as a disconnection from Garland and her messy life. An unstoppable read that demystifies Garland yet still details her international appeal. Don’t, however, expect it to convey
her magic: listen to her Carnegie Hall album in the dark for that. (photos, not seen) (Author tour)Pub Date: April 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50378-1
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2000
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
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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