A well-paced memoir steeped in strife, struggle, sorrow, and, eventually, freedom.
The poignant life story of a woman who escaped a restrictive past to embrace an independent future.
Gecils’ inspirational debut memoir, 11 years in the making, is both an astute character study and a harrowing familial drama that plays out in the lush environs of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The author grew up as a middle child; she had two sisters, although she says her mother secretly wished for sons. In order to support the family, the author’s father became a software programmer at IBM and traveled a great deal; their lonely mother dejectedly handed off child-rearing responsibilities to a maid, a nanny, and the children’s grandparents. Desperate for acceptance, Gecils’ mother reached out to the superstitious spiritual sects in Rio for direction and embarked on a long-term, clandestine affair as her daughters attended a local French private school. The author’s misery escalated, she says, when her mother unceremoniously whisked her and her sisters to Shangrila, a cramped, isolated “make-shift farm” in the Brazilian forest, with their staunchly pious new stepfather, Lauro, who pursued a delirious mission to father the next “Messiah.” Gecils’ experience becomes gradually more harrowing as she finds herself a virtual prisoner on the farm. The author paces her personal narrative well, taking time to describe both the history of her family and of Brazil’s capital city. She also reveals details of her religious indoctrination at the hands of her mother and stepfather; they urged her to see prophetic visions at the cult’s meetings, she says, and she became further isolated after her biological father remarried and severed ties. She also dealt with sexual abuse, domestic violence, and bullying, which led her to make plans for a new life, unencumbered by her militant stepfather’s rules. Gecils’ resonant chronicle explores themes of belonging, family allegiance, and starting over. As it does so, it effectively tells the story of the burgeoning liberation of a young girl who had her eye on a bright horizon.
A well-paced memoir steeped in strife, struggle, sorrow, and, eventually, freedom.Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-63047-684-7
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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