Like strolling around in an idiosyncratic, surprising, and informative museum.
A veteran Australian novelist and essayist returns with a motley, spirited collection of pieces dating back more than a decade.
One of the first things readers new to Garner (The House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial, 2015, etc.) will notice is her candor. She writes frankly about her youthful indiscretions, failed marriages, temper (she goes off on a teenage girl taunting older women), and ignorance about certain subjects (ballet, for example). She does so in the same frank and clear voice she uses throughout these essays that range from memories (a rare book from girlhood) to reviews (of films and personalities, from United 93 to the complete films of Russell Crowe) to searches for meaning in her quotidian experiences (she invariably finds something). A couple of times Garner mentions key dreams that conveniently fit with the theme of the piece, but she nonetheless convinces throughout that she is one on whom little is lost. Most pieces are quite brief, just several pages, and they appear in thematic rather than chronological order. Most are from the 2000s, but one about pianist Glenn Gould is from 1994: “J.S. Bach is God, as far as I’m concerned, and…Gould was one of his major prophets.” Throughout, we learn quite a bit about the author. Her feelings about her parents, her fondness for her ukulele, her gratitude to a tough teacher from girlhood, her admiration for writers (from Elizabeth Jolley to Janet Malcolm; she calls the latter “Dear boss”), her broken relationship with a family dog, her battle with depression, her responses to aging (she’s now 73)—these and other richly human subjects connect the author emotionally to her readers. Among the most engaging pieces are three selections from her diary; though generally very brief, they provide sharp images of her work, her reading, and her fellow travelers.
Like strolling around in an idiosyncratic, surprising, and informative museum.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-925355-36-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Text
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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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