A unique approach to the continuing deconstruction of the Trumpian edifice.
Another searing exposé of the current president.
Former federal prosecutor Zirin, a “middle-of-the-road Republican,” pieces together a highly damning portrait of Donald Trump as a serial abuser of the law, lifelong liar, perjurer, business fraudster, tax evader, racist, and serial perpetrator of sexual assault. The book is so incriminating not only because of the author’s credentials, but also because the details are grounded in approximately 3,500 lawsuits filed by Trump, against Trump, or, in some instances, cross-filed by the opposing parties. Because litigation generally includes sworn affidavits attesting to accuracy and testimony given under oath if a trial occurs, the author is able to accurately document, page after page, the unbelievably long list of Trump’s exaggerations and outright falsehoods. In fact, the documentation provided by Zirin is impossible to refute, by Trump or anybody else who might take exception to this book (most of whom will ignore the facts anyway). The author began his painstaking research in 2015, soon after Trump announced he would seek the presidency on the Republican Party ballot. Because Zirin had spent his decadeslong law career in New York, he had already formed an impression of Trump as a businessman who lacked respect for the Constitution and the courts. Among other topics, the author focuses on Trump’s ties to organized crime; his business frauds related to hotels, casinos, and residential rental properties; and his phony Trump University. An entire chapter covers litigation related to Trump’s mistreatment of women, including physical assault. In every chapter, Zirin explains how Trump abuses the court system, which is funded by American taxpayers, by filing lawsuits in bad faith. He also targets Trump’s lawyers for their unethical behaviors. Though the author’s writing is not always easy to follow, as he sometimes lapses into lawyerly jargon, his overall message is achingly clear: “All this aberrant behavior would be problematic in a businessman….But the implications of such conduct in a man who is the president…are nothing less than terrifying.”
A unique approach to the continuing deconstruction of the Trumpian edifice.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-20162-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: All Points/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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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