A middle-aged, male Bridget Jones survives cancer and seeks his soul mate.
In Bankfarm’s memoir, he describes his life as a newly divorced banker who entered the world of online dating and was diagnosed with melanoma and successfully survived both ordeals.
When Bankfarm’s children were young adults, he and his wife realized they’d grown apart, and they divorced. He discovered online dating and approached it “like a twenty-five-year-old with a fifty-five-year-old’s budget, a dangerous combination.” The dating site connected him with a woman named Susan, but she was apprehensive after her own divorce and canceled their date. Finally meeting face to face, the two enjoyed being with each other and fell in love. Bankfarm visited the dermatologist about a spot on his hand that ended up being merely a bruise, but that “pimple” on his arm was malignant melanoma. The book explores his struggle with loneliness as much as his struggle with cancer. A man of faith, he consulted God, a psychic and others in an attempt to keep Sue in his life. At times, it’s disturbing to read of his overzealous efforts to woo her; Sue made it clear on several occasions she no longer wanted to see him. About a third of the way in, the author switches abruptly from the modern era to the past and shares his autobiography. Raised by an alcoholic father, he bought a car and left home as soon as possible. He entered college, partied too much and joined the Army Reserves. Afterward, he got a job in finance and advanced in the banking industry before returning to college. Bankfarm is a likable man who worked hard to get where he is today. He’s refreshingly honest about the screw-ups he’s made along the way, and his story is rarely dull. It’s touching to read some of the emotions he shares, at times wondering who will care for him and how his finances will fare. This is simple, straightforward prose from a man grateful to be alive.
A middle-aged, male Bridget Jones survives cancer and seeks his soul mate.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500472214
Page Count: 202
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2014
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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