It appears to be kiss-and-tell season on Jewish American male novelists; Philip Roth got his last fall, and now Saul Bellow gets his. Wasserman writes without either sentiment or bitterness about the man she devotedly represented for 25 years and who then left her for literary agent provocateur Andrew Wylie (a.k.a. the Jackal). This lack of emotional direction leaves readers a bit confused as to what she wants us to make of the whole thing. In her introduction, Wasserman writes of the ``extra privilege'' of being connected with ``a man of genius, of high art and moral vision, an original thinker,'' and defends him against the familiar charges of misogyny and womanizing. Yet the first episode she relates is how Bellow the noted author turned his eye on her, a young assistant to his agent at Russell & Volkening, selected her to be the first reader of Humboldt's Gift, came to her apartment to discuss it over dinner, and bedded her (a disastrous experience after which, Wasserman assures us, they became the best of platonic friends). And every succeeding incident seems to highlight some petty, mean, selfish act by Bellow. He invited her to visit him in Spain, only to inform her on her arrival that he was leaving the next day, and asked her to cash her travelers' checks for him because he needed money. When his mother-in-law became extremely ill in Romania, Bellow accompanied his wife to see her, though, Wasserman flatly states, ``it was definitely not Saul's style, rushing off like that to be a support to someone.'' She put up with his insensitivity and wisely managed his literary career because that is what nurturing agents do for their simpering author-children. But Wasserman doesn't have much flair for writing, and this spotty look at a 25-year relationship just leaves one wondering where the pleasure was in knowing Saul Bellow.
Pub Date: June 23, 1997
ISBN: 0-88064-177-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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