Medical history, physical and psychological stress, and human ambition are the prominent strands in this rich narrative...
A winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award (Ernie Pyle’s War, 1997) returns with an account of Franklin Roosevelt’s struggles with polio and how they shaped his political career.
Tobin (Journalism/Miami Univ., Ohio; To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight, 2003, etc.) focuses on 1921–1932, the years that frame FDR’s contracting polio and his winning his first presidential election. Throughout, the author emphasizes his thesis: FDR did not win elections in spite of his polio but because of it. Tobin begins with some moments before FDR took his first presidential oath of office in 1933, then he takes us back to the summer of 1921, where he speculates about how FDR contracted the disease. Here—and throughout—Tobin instructs us about the polio virus: how it enters the system (“via specks of human waste”), what it does once it gets there, the varieties of damage it does and the treatments available in the decade of the book’s focus. Tobin does a fine job of showing us how the virus knocked FDR down, how one physician completely misdiagnosed his case, and how FDR dealt with the grievous pain, both physical and psychological. We also meet people who helped in various ways—from his wife, Eleanor, to his aide Louis Howe and several secretaries, physical therapists and physicians. The author also dispels the nonsense that FDR somehow hid his illness from the public (everyone knew: It was continually in the newspapers) and chronicles the long, slow struggle that eventually enabled him to sit, stand and walk (braced and otherwise aided). He used a wheelchair only for short periods and only at home. We see, as well, the evolution of his relationship with his wife and his complicated choreography with fellow New York politician Al Smith.
Medical history, physical and psychological stress, and human ambition are the prominent strands in this rich narrative carpet.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7432-6515-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
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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