Well-rendered essays that make readers think and feel deeply.
A writer with a history of depression and anxiety plunges deeper into the abyss following the birth of her son.
This memoir, structured as a series of interlinked essays, begins with Friedmann at a river, intending, at least in her mind, to drown herself; it ends with her return to a river, her son a little older, her mind a little clearer, and her attitude sunnier. “With the aid of medication and self-care, I was learning to forge new neural pathways,” she writes. The rest of the book is devoted to other things that helped, including a strong, supportive marriage with a loving husband; the music of Antony and the Johnsons and then Anohni, the woman whom Antony has become; the feminist criticism of Siri Hustvedt and others; the inspiration Friedmann received from dance and the movies she watched repeatedly; and the recognition that she was not alone and that what she was experiencing had been experienced and survived by others, many of whom lacked the resources she enjoyed. When she is thinking more clearly, the author offers acute analysis, blurring distinctions that are too common and simple: “Illness and health, movement and inertia; they are not dialectically opposed, but constantly approaching and retreating from one another, overlaying each other, coexisting.” Yet in the depths of her depression, the author felt that she had lost her grip on the lifeline of language, that motherhood had subsumed her, and that she would be incapable of resuming her roles as a writer and editor or balancing her own professional ambitions against her husband’s. She never succumbs to sentimentality in these pages even when it’s obvious how much she loves (or has learned to love) her son and how fortunate she feels for all that she has.
Well-rendered essays that make readers think and feel deeply.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-374-27480-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.
An exhaustive—and exhausting—chronicle of the champ's boxing career and disastrous life.
Tyson was dealt an unforgiving hand as a child, raised in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in a "horrific, tough and gruesome" environment populated by "loud, aggressive" people who "smelled like raw sewage.” A first-grade dropout with several break-ins under his belt by age 7, his formal education resumed when he was placed in juvenile detention at age 11, but the lesson he learned at home was to do absolutely anything to survive. Two years later, his career path was set when he met legendary boxing trainer Cus D'Amato. However, Tyson’s temperament never changed; if anything, it hardened when he took on the persona of Iron Mike, a merciless and savage fighter who became undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. By his own admission, he was an "arrogant sociopath" in and out of the ring, and he never reconciled his thuggish childhood with his adult self—nor did he try. He still partied with pimps, drug addicts and hustlers, and he was determined to feed all of his vices and fuel several drug addictions at the cost of his freedom (he recounts his well-documented incarcerations), sanity and children. Yet throughout this time, he remained a voracious reader, and he compares himself to Clovis and Charlemagne and references Camus, Sartre, Mao Zedong and Nietzsche's "Overman" in casual conversation. Tyson is a slumdog philosopher whose insatiable appetites have ruined his life many times over. He remains self-loathing and pitiable, and his tone throughout the book is sardonic, exasperated and indignant, his language consistently crude. The book, co-authored by Sloman (co-author: Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss, 2012, etc.), reads like his journal; he updated it after reading the galleys and added "A Postscript to the Epilogue" as well.
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-16128-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
Rhimes said “yes” to sharing her insights. Following her may not land you on the cover of a magazine, but you’ll be glad you...
The queen of Thursday night TV delivers a sincere and inspiring account of saying yes to life.
Rhimes, the brain behind hits like Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, is an introvert. She describes herself as a young girl, playing alone in the pantry, making up soap-opera script stories to act out with the canned goods. Speaking in public terrified her; going to events exhausted her. She was always busy, and she didn’t have enough time for her daughters. One Thanksgiving changed it all: when her sister observed that she never said “yes” to anything, Rhimes took it as a challenge. She started, among other things, accepting invitations, facing unpleasant conversations, and playing with her children whenever they asked. The result was a year of challenges and self-discovery that led to a fundamental shift in how she lives her life. Rhimes tells us all about it in the speedy, smart style of her much-loved TV shows. She’s warm, eminently relatable, and funny. We get an idea of what it’s like to be a successful TV writer and producer, to be the ruler of Shondaland, but the focus is squarely on the lessons one can learn from saying yes rather than shying away. Saying no was easy, Rhimes writes. It was comfortable, “a way to disappear.” But after her year, no matter how tempting it is, “I can no longer allow myself to say no. No is no longer in my vocabulary.” The book is a fast read—readers could finish it in the time it takes to watch a full lineup of her Thursday night programing—but it’s not insubstantial. Like a cashmere shawl you pack just in case, Year of Yes is well worth the purse space, and it would make an equally great gift.
Rhimes said “yes” to sharing her insights. Following her may not land you on the cover of a magazine, but you’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-7709-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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