An original, well-researched novel that combines exciting plot twists with thought-provoking themes.
In this novel, Adkins (Hannity’s Curse, 2009, etc.), a retired physician, imagines a young doctor’s journey to the Western frontier during the Gold Rush.
In 1849, young Daniel Todd, who’s just graduated from the Massachusetts Medical College of Harvard University, is on his way to the gold camps of California by ship when his vessel sinks in a hurricane. Alone and adrift on a piece of wreckage, he’s rescued by the whaling brig Ellie Mae. It’s through this bit of fortune that Todd begins his career in medicine—a profession that will increasingly test the faith that his reverend father fought to instill in his son. (His father’s words, “Through adversity, perhaps you will find God,” become the book’s key theme.) After a year on the Ellie Mae, “Doc” Todd, now an accomplished whaler, catches a ride on a passing clipper to San Francisco—then a ramshackle frontier town, flush with gold-rush fever. Todd eventually secures the supplies he needs and settles first in Sacramento, where he befriends a miner-turned-reverend named Simon, who’s more philosophical than devout: “Who really knows the answer?” Simon tells Daniel. Against Simon’s advice, Todd leaves for Jacksonville, a rough-and-tumble mining camp in the Oregon Territory. Here, he encounters one terrifying emergency after another, from collapsed mines to breached pregnancies to a smallpox outbreak. He also falls in love with the owner of a cook tent, a young widow named Del, who later falls ill. Adkins uses this situation to show how agonized Todd becomes by the limits of medicine, which cause him to descend into physical and mental illness. He also deftly shows how Todd’s struggle, the most important of his life, defines his journey beyond Jacksonville. Over the course of the story, Adkins draws on both his knowledge as a physician and his skill as a storyteller to portray the diagnosis and treatment of injuries such as bone fractures and many potentially life-threatening maladies. These moments are easily accessible and surprisingly enjoyable to read.
An original, well-researched novel that combines exciting plot twists with thought-provoking themes.Pub Date: June 26, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4415-3352-4
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
