Effectively sobering. Suffice it to say that Pop Warner parents will want to armor their kids from head to toe upon reading...
A maddening, well-constructed tale of medical discovery and corporate coverup, set in morgues, laboratories, courtrooms, and football fields.
Nigeria-born Bennet Omalu is perhaps an unlikely hero, a medical doctor board-certified in four areas of pathology, “anatomic, clinical, forensic, and neuropathology,” and a well-rounded specialist in death. When his boss, celebrity examiner Cyril Wecht (“in the autopsy business, Wecht was a rock star”), got into trouble for various specimens of publicity-hound overreach, Omalu was there to offer patient, stoical support. The student did not surpass the teacher in flashiness, but Omalu was a rock star all his own in studying the brain to determine a cause of death. Laskas’ (Creative Writing/Univ. of Pittsburgh; Hidden America, 2012, etc.) main topic is the horrific injuries wrought to the brains and bodies of football players on the field. Omalu’s study of the unfortunate brain of Pittsburgh Steeler Mike Webster, who died in 2002 at 50 of a supposed heart attack, brought new attention to the trauma of concussion. Laskas trades in sportwriter-ese, all staccato delivery full of tough guy–isms and sports clichés: “He had played for fifteen seasons, a warrior’s warrior; he played in more games—two hundred twenty—than any other player in Steelers history. Undersized, tough, a big, burly white guy—a Pittsburgh kind of guy—the heart of the best team in history.” A little of that goes a long way, but Laskas, a Pittsburgher who first wrote of Omalu and his studies in a story in GQ, does sturdy work in keeping up with a grim story that the NFL most definitely did not want to see aired—not in Omalu’s professional publications in medical journals, nor, reportedly, on the big screen in the Will Smith vehicle based on this book.
Effectively sobering. Suffice it to say that Pop Warner parents will want to armor their kids from head to toe upon reading it.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8757-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
Occasionally breathless and clunky, this is a vivid and inspiring read all the same, sure to find a large audience among...
Another stone added to the growing mountain of Everest adventures.
Newcomer Grylls was serving in the British army in 1996 when he suffered a parachuting accident that left him with three broken vertebrae and a badly bruised spinal cord. In the months of physical therapy that followed, this avid climber rekindled a childhood dream to climb the world’s tallest peak—a feat that very few mountaineers younger than 30 have ever managed to pull off. “Everest is no place to prove yourself,” the author admits. “The likelihood of reaching the summit is so slim that you’re inevitably setting yourself up to be disappointed.” Even so, he talked his way into a slot on a 1998 British expedition led by a tough-as-nails ex-Marine commando who urged his teammates through the icy, windswept hells that Grylls describes quite effectively. For instance, he tells us that one area of Everest, the Icefalls, is so named because great spears of ice break off the sun-warmed slope in mid-afternoon, sharp and heavy enough to kill anyone standing “deep within the jaws of the overhang”; his account of the party’s race across the region is a fine set piece that doesn’t compare at all badly to the best Everest narratives. Against all odds, the author endured the Icefalls, the Lhotse Face, and other challenges the mountain threw up along the way, eventually arriving at the aptly named Death Zone, where, hyperventilating, he communed with the body of Rob Hall (whose death stands at the dramatic heart of Jon Krakauer’s 1997 account, Into Thin Air) and then took the summit—all at the tender age of 23.
Occasionally breathless and clunky, this is a vivid and inspiring read all the same, sure to find a large audience among outdoor-adventure and climbing buffs.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-58574-250-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Lyons Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
New York's most controversial tabloid sports reporter fouls out in a lazy whodunit. Pro hoops stars Ellis ``Fresh'' Adair and Richie Collins are two kids from the projects who have made it big. African-American Fresh is basketball's most skilled player since Michael Jordan. Richie, a Latino, made his name by getting the ball to Fresh. Together, they bring the New York Knicks to another level and as their reward are admired by millions of strangers—a familiar situation that Lupica milks for all it's worth. Fresh and Richie gain unwanted notoriety when Hannah Carey, a blond fitness instructor with a past, accuses the two of rape. Enter the book's nominal hero, Tony DiMaggio, a former baseball player turned sports sleuth who is hired by the Knicks to get to the bottom of this mess before the cops do. He discovers that Richie, a wolf in point guard's clothing, was indeed the rapist; Fresh, for reasons later made clear, wanted no part of Hannah, who, it seems was infatuated with A.J., yet another Knick. Later, Richie's trouble keeping his pants on earns him an ice pick in the heart—and Fresh is nowhere to be found. As DiMaggio digs up more dirt, he discovers that Fresh is innocent, on the run for more personal reasons. To find Richie's killer, DiMaggio follows the trail of broken hearts leading away from the dead hoopster's coffin. He learns that Richie was a serial rapist who believed that every woman was ``asking for it,'' especially from him, a bona fide superstar. This otherwise interesting bit of insight into the mind of a pro jock serves as the foundation for many red herrings, but the real killer, like the entire book, is obvious. Setting his thriller in the pro basketball universe, Lupica (Dead Air, 1986, etc.) slavishly follows the adage ``write what you know'' but forgets to make it interesting.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-40334-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
