Despite the lack of participation from Hearst, this is a well-informed, engaging work from a highly capable author.
The ubiquitous legal journalist and author returns with a detailed but swiftly moving account of the 1974 kidnapping that mesmerized the nation.
Readers of a certain age will be astonished that this case is more than 40 years old. So much has changed, as New Yorker staff writer Toobin (The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court, 2012, etc.) effectively points out. He reminds us, for instance, that live TV feeds from crime scenes were a novelty that spread rapidly after the coverage of a shootout between some members of the Symbionese Liberation Army—the motley crew that kidnapped Patricia Hearst, the young heiress of the noted publishing family—and the federal and local authorities. Toobin begins with a quick account of the kidnapping, an introduction of the principals, and some 1970s cultural history, and then he moves into the slow conversion of Hearst into a trash-talking urban guerrilla (the term she later used to identify herself), her involvement in SLA criminal activities, and her sex life. The author occasionally shows us the doings of those left behind—principally her family and her fiance, Steven Weed, who does not come off well, then and now. (He bolted when the SLA arrived.) Toobin ably charts the bizarre inability of authorities to figure out this crew of barely competent revolutionaries. Once Patricia is caught and on trial for her SLA–related activities, the author’s considerable legal knowledge propels the narrative. He shows us that both the prosecution and the defense lacked competence, especially celebrated defense attorney F. Lee Bailey, whom Toobin paints as an opportunist inebriated with alcohol and celebrity. The author ends with an update on the principals and notes that Hearst resolutely refused to contribute to his book.
Despite the lack of participation from Hearst, this is a well-informed, engaging work from a highly capable author.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-385-53671-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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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