A poignant and engaging account that features some pithy advice delivered with strength and panache.
In her second memoir, a writer shares her commitment to appreciating each moment, a philosophy strengthened when she returns to New York state to be near her dying father.
Independent, passionate about all things outdoorsy, and devoted to family and friends, Wheeler embraced life’s opportunities and setbacks, determined to have no regrets. Her “Friend Basket” was filled with a diverse assortment of people from around the country with whom she was close. And she was always open to adding someone new. After living out west for about 25 years, Wheeler decided she was ready to shake things up. She sold her catering business in Colorado and headed east: “After a couple of successful careers and not-as-successful relationships that ended, my curvy path led back to the state I grew up in.” That is not where she had intended to land. First, she went to the Florida Keys. New friends and intriguing possibilities kept her on the move. But when her father’s progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative disease with neither a cure nor a meaningful treatment, seriously compromised his physical condition, she knew she had to be with him for however much time he had left. She moved into her brother’s house in upstate New York, one mile from where her father and stepmother lived. Wheeler’s time frame vacillates, which sometimes makes it difficult for readers to follow the linear trajectory of her life. But this is a minor complaint. Each vignette or chapter, some as short as a few paragraphs, immerses readers in the emotions of the experience, whether it’s riding the rapids or sitting with her father in a nursing home. Her prose is at once eloquent and conversational; both sharp and gently humorous. There is a fierceness in her important rule—don’t leave until tomorrow what can be said today. The chance may not come again. Despite her obvious grief and anger over watching her father waste away, she was demonstrably grateful to have been there when he needed her. As she shows in these pages, she certainly needed to be at his side.
A poignant and engaging account that features some pithy advice delivered with strength and panache.Pub Date: May 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-09-674453-5
Page Count: 177
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2020
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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