A vivid, action-packed combat memoir, Blackmon’s book explores what life is like for those boots on the ground, as well as...
Blackmon narrates the blow-by-blow experience of flying helicopters through embattled mountains during the Afghan War.
The 101st Airborne Division is legendary for its actions in the D-Day invasion and Battle of the Bulge. As a squadron commander in the 2000s, the author helped lead the division’s modern incarnation. Small teams of infantrymen patrol the Afghan countryside in weaponized choppers, and the narrative is an endless series of ambushes and firefights. His subject matter is in turns suspenseful and violent, but Blackmon’s writing remains calmly technical: “Smoke began to fill the cockpit as the fire continued to burn in the back of the helicopter. Sergeant McLowhorn disconnected his safety strap and retrieved an extinguisher.” While the book is intended for military buffs, and Blackmon uses authentic jargon, he never loses average readers. More importantly, he adds personal touches that humanize the story. Blackmon grew up in Georgia and labels himself as a born fighter, and he idolizes his fellow servicemen, who come off as selfless, courageous, and professional. The author honestly reflects on PTSD and the damage it has wreaked on his colleagues. In one scene, a flight surgeon recounts his nightmares, which involve blown-off limbs and abandoning soldiers in the battlefield to die. Blackmon doesn’t delve much into civilian politics, and his outlook is rigidly martial, but he seems to empathize with the people and problems of the Middle East. “For me, there was no questioning the necessity of our mission in Afghanistan,” he writes. “What troubled me was how we could convince isolated tribesmen like those in the Helgal to embrace our vision of their future. It must have seemed like such a foreign concept to them, like my grandmother trying to convince me that castor oil was good for me as a child.”
A vivid, action-packed combat memoir, Blackmon’s book explores what life is like for those boots on the ground, as well as in the air.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-07271-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
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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