An inspiring and revealing story of one family’s pursuit of the truth about their son.
A debut memoir about a family who searched for their loved one for decades.
Until her mother’s death, Brooklyn-based writer and editor Rotondi knew very little about Uncle Jack, who disappeared in Laos in 1972 and “stayed missing” for 36 years. The author discovered boxes of letters and declassified documents that showed decades of research into his whereabouts, much of it conducted by her grandparents, Ed and Rosemary. Ed, who had been a POW during World War II, was not convinced when the American government told him his son had died in a plane crash over Laos, so he spent the rest of his life digging for the truth. Eventually, Rotondi’s mother took up the search, followed by the author. As part of their search, Ed and Rosemary requested packets of information under the Freedom of Information Act, attended hearings, protested the lack of government concern about the POWs and MIAs in Southeast Asia, and clung to the belief that their son was still alive. Ed even visited Laos but was unable to access the crash site. Years later, Rotondi and a friend followed his footsteps, gathering shreds of information from the locals, many of whom were nervous about talking openly with Americans. The author’s precise attention to detail conjures up the jungle heat and humidity as well as the pervasive poverty that plagues Laos, and she effectively captures her family’s daily struggle and the toll their quest took on their personal health. The narrative is moving and dramatic as the author shares the alternately heartbreaking and triumphant moments of this intergenerational search for the truth. At intervals in the well-written text, Rotondi also shares details about the CIA’s “Secret War” in Laos, where, “between 1964 and 1973, the United States dropped two million tons of cluster bombs…a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years.”
An inspiring and revealing story of one family’s pursuit of the truth about their son.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-951213-07-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Unnamed Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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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