An uneven coming-of-age memoir of life under two regimes.
Szablya (The Fall of the Red Star, 2002, etc.) presents a memoir about life under Nazi occupation and Communist rule in Hungary.
For the author, air-raid sirens marked the onset of World War II and the end of her childhood. Her grandfather, who founded a chain of drugstores in Budapest and created a popular line of beauty products, had secured a comfortable existence for the family. The clan had two homes, commanded an army of servants and had considerable influence in the community—a life that slipped away when the Nazis occupied Hungary. As the bombing intensified and yellow stars appeared on Jews’ lapels, the family took shelter in the countryside and witnessed the Red Army’s advance, which the author describes as more scourge than salvation. Helen was taught to say that she was 9 to avoid being raped; her pretty mother was kept out of sight for the same reason. Her father, who served as a doctor for wounded soldiers, helped avert the worst encounters. Peace was elusive, and even an armistice didn’t mean the end of the family’s nightmare. The Soviet Union took control of Hungary, the family business was nationalized, and, in time, Helen’s mother was arrested by the secret police. Spanning 14 years, Szablya’s memoir reads like an oral history full of poignant anecdotes: After the siege of Budapest, a man’s house collapsed on him while he ate lunch; a woman whose family was killed could complain only that “the Soviets had taken all of her black slips.” Still, many readers may feel that the book might have benefited from more rigorous editing; the author often gives free rein to childhood memories that seem extraneous, including a trip to Paris packed with exhausting details (“The French sold their bread in long sticks, by the meter”). Some incidents might have had more resonance if the author had provided more psychological insight. That said, the book is a welcome addition to firsthand accounts of the era; historians may find it worthy of perusal, but more casual readers may wish for a more streamlined account.
An uneven coming-of-age memoir of life under two regimes.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2013
ISBN: 978-1479210206
Page Count: 580
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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