A thoughtful, humane meditation on war and family history, full of myth-bursting truths.
Tales of courage, desperation and endurance in some of the worst moments of WWII.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux editor Glusman concentrates on recounting the wartime experiences of his father and three of his father’s fellow Navy doctors, his larger story sprawls across miles of canvas and involves countless players. The elder Glusman and his three comrades were captured in May 1942, after Douglas MacArthur and a handful of senior staff were evacuated in the face of imminent Japanese victory. Glusman junior suggests that MacArthur’s abilities as a leader were surely inadequate to the task of defending the Philippines; he had weeks in which to prepare for the seaborne invasion after Pearl Harbor and did nothing useful, and “at the eleventh hour, MacArthur was forced into a devil’s bargain by trading a failed military strategy for one that would knowingly sacrifice the defenders of Bataan and Corregidor.” In Japanese hands, the doctors found themselves confronted with daily cultural conflicts: whereas the Americans thought of the Japanese as subhuman, the Japanese were certain that as members of the master race they were destined to replace “Anglo-American imperialism with a new world order.” Governed by the rules of bushido, or the warrior’s way, the Japanese had little sympathy for captives. Yet, as Glusman writes, they had not always fought this way; in the earlier wars of the 20th century, they had treated their prisoners humanely, a practice that apparently ended when Soviets butchered a Japanese garrison in the 1920s. A soldier was not supposed to surrender, and “if a Japanese soldier would choose death over capture, how could he be expected to respect enemy prisoners of war?” The Japanese behaved abominably. But, as Glusman notes, worse lay in store when the doctors were removed to the Japanese mainland, where, “healers in a world of hurt, they were deprived of the very tools they needed most”—and where many of their fellow prisoners would be killed not by their captors but by errant American bombs.
A thoughtful, humane meditation on war and family history, full of myth-bursting truths.Pub Date: May 9, 2005
ISBN: 0-670-03408-8
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2005
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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