Much good, little bad, no ugly.
An entertaining miscellany by journalist, rock critic, and cultural historian Marcus (Dead Elvis, 1991, etc.).
Marcus claims that Elvis Presley and Bill Clinton co-exist “in the common imagination as blessed, tawdry actors in a pretentious musical comedy cum dinner-theater Greek tragedy.” Occasionally Marcus revisits this theme in his motley collection of previously published (but here revised) columns and essays—but more frequently the President and the King exist only as ghostly presences amid Marcus’s ruminations on subjects as varied as the autobiography of Marianne Faithfull, an important new album by Bob Dylan (“a singer who . . . can still beat the clock”), and “Real Love” (the “latest pseudo-Beatles single,” produced by adding the voices of Paul, Ringo, and George to a recording of long-gone John). A number of these pieces are eloquent eulogies for various cultural icons—Allen Ginsberg, Kurt Cobain, Berkeley Free Speecher Mario Savio, actor J.T. Walsh, et al. Others are the latest of the author’s continuing attempts to figure out Elvis, “America’s secret angel; America’s secret demon.” Among the best of all is a keynote address Marcus delivered in 1998 at an Elvis conference. Beginning with an analysis of the pervasiveness of “Elvis jokes,” the piece moves into a provocative discussion of Presley and Clinton (“one man who could, and one man who can, charm you almost to death”). Also fascinating is his review of Pleasantville, which he describes as the flip-side of the popular body-snatcher films: “The aliens come to make the pod people human.” In a number of his essays Marcus rails against the Republicans who, in his view, refused to accept the legitimacy of Clinton’s elections, and he accepts as “perfectly factual” Hillary Clinton’s statement about the right-wing conspiracy to bring down her husband. Not surprisingly, then, he sees in the Right a pernicious political snobbery, a belief that “some people belong [in this country], and some people don’t.”
Much good, little bad, no ugly.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2000
ISBN: 0-8050-6513-X
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2000
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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