Overly worshipful, but you’d have to be quite jaded to be bored by this chronicle of a miniseries life.
Veteran diva-disher Taraborrelli, who has written about Cher, Madonna and Princess Grace, turns his pen on the silver screen starlet of the century.
Elizabeth Taylor, she of nine lives and eight marriages, was born to privilege in England. She had a stunning, powerful mother intent on making her lovely daughter a Hollywood sensation. In her turbulent life, as Taraborrelli chronicles, Taylor has been (take a deep breath): the horse-loving preteen of National Velvet; the child-bride of volatile heir Nicky Hilton; the tragic young widow of hot-shot director Mike Todd; the home-wrecking vixen of Hollywood’s most wholesome couple, Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds; one half of Liz and Dick, twice-married Tinseltown supercouple; political trophy wife and campaign-trail eye-candy; alcoholic pill popper and walking train wreck; AIDS activist and best friend to Michael Jackson; the bloated, bleach-blonde soon-to-be ex-wife of construction worker Larry Fortensky. With all this drama, Taylor’s life is a story that nearly tells itself, and Taraborelli veers from his usual catty criticism. After detailing yet another embarrassing episode or inexcusable deed, the author attempts to make excuses for his subject, consistently starting sentences with the phrase “to be fair.” Where has there ever been a place for “fair” in the provocatively offensive pages of an unauthorized biography? It is to the detriment of the book that Taraborelli seems to have a reverence and sympathy for Taylor, for it lacks the bitchy bite that makes celebrity journalism so, well, Schadenfreude-y. Still, the enchanting Elizabeth does not fail to fascinate, whether we pity or revile her. As the writer characterizes her, she is unable to distinguish between onscreen and offscreen realities, always performing, while feeling deeply.
Overly worshipful, but you’d have to be quite jaded to be bored by this chronicle of a miniseries life.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2006
ISBN: 0-446-53254-1
Page Count: 528
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2006
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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