An honest, if truncated, account of a long struggle with mental illness.
A debut memoir recalls one man’s life with schizophrenia.
Having been diagnosed as a schizophrenic, Osowski explains that he spent years experiencing the Jesus Christ syndrome: “I took on the guilt of the entire world. I took the blame, inside, for the weather, the earthquakes and plane crashes.” Writing in an “attempt to share myself with others,” the author details a mental illness that has often left him in difficult, even unthinkable, positions. From brutal stints in jail (“a certain person might lay into me, punching me, spitting at me, taking all my few possessions”) to the inability to trust his own mind (“I walked around in total fear of what my mind saw, where it would take me next, or if I would ever be able to come back to living in the real world”). The opportunity for disaster was always available. After all, how can Osowski live even a semblance of a normal life when his mind tells him he has committed all the crimes mentioned on the news? Incarceration is a clear result: “I have been locked up for many crimes I did commit and twice for crimes that never happened.” Though such details are telling, some portions of the book might have benefited from greater elaboration. This is the case when the author states rather casually that “I went through three different relationships; and later, started a family.” The reader is left wondering about these relationships. How did they form? What were they like? How did they end? At under 100 pages, however, the story is inherently brief and, ultimately, positive. Writing that “life for me is no longer burdened down with those old delusions and the pain that went along with it,” Osowski radiates a sense that things will get better not just for him, but also for those who can gain perspective from his experiences. The author tells readers to keep in mind many misconceptions about those afflicted with schizophrenia: “We are not terrible people out to hurt anyone!”
An honest, if truncated, account of a long struggle with mental illness.Pub Date: June 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5152-7507-7
Page Count: 86
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 9, 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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