A powerful, necessary book with revelatory passages on nearly every page.
A former parole officer illuminates numerous significant flaws in the American criminal justice system.
After teaching high school English and then earning a master’s degree, Hardy took a job as a parole officer in his hometown of New Orleans, which “has become emblematic of institutional decay in America.” Carrying a gun and wearing a bulletproof vest, he spent most of his days in the poverty-stricken sections of New Orleans, checking on convicted criminals paroled after serving prison time. When not meeting with parolees, Hardy was dealing with clients on probation after they had been arrested and brought before a judge but before being incarcerated by the state of Louisiana, which was “the world’s leading incarcerator” until 2018. The author understood that he would be paid modestly, work long hours, and encounter potentially dangerous situations. What he did not anticipate was the crushing case load: about 220 parolees and probationers, four times the number suggested by agency standards. To tell the narrative cohesively, Hardy focuses on seven of his clients—six men and one woman, black and white, all involved in some manner with illegal drugs. A few of the seven seem sincere about cleaning up, finding stable housing, and accepting minimum wage jobs that might lead to exiting probation or parole; the other clients show no real commitment to escaping the criminal justice system. Hardy quickly realized that budgetary constraints would severely limit the alternatives he could provide. In addition to telling the often harrowing stories of his clients, Hardy offers insights into police officers, social workers, prosecutors, judges, and, especially, his PO colleagues. In brief passages, he also illuminates how the relentlessly depressing job affects his life at home with his wife. After four years, Hardy resigned to become a special agent for the FBI. Throughout, the author is refreshingly candid with readers, who will realize that his ultimate goal is to prevent his clients from continued lives of crime, violence, or even death.
A powerful, necessary book with revelatory passages on nearly every page.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982128-59-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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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