A complement and corrective to the Clintons’ own memoirs, full of surprising turns that do much to explain the recent...
A revealing look at the Clinton presidency, characterized by great ambitions and shattering failures.
Washington Post reporter Harris traces several themes that dominated the Clinton years, many of which emerged early on. One was the so-called Travelgate affair, concerning a team of career staff dedicated to making travel arrangements for reporters on the road with the president. Hillary Clinton is said to have remarked of them, “We need those people out. We need our people in,” setting in motion their firing and a subsequent riling of a good number of reporters. She denied involvement, Bill Clinton denied knowing anything about it—and in 2000 federal prosecutors concluded that Hillary had made false statements about the matter. Another theme is a leitmotif: Harris’s favorite word for the Clintons in retreat—as they so often retreated from such topics as health care and gays in the military—is “sullen,” and sullen they often are in these pages. Yet another theme is Clinton’s resistance to established protocols, such as going through a switchboard operator to make a phone call and going to a fast-food restaurant whenever he wanted. When he discovered that the White House had a few elements in common with a prison, he became, well, sullen. Against this backdrop, Harris deftly explains critical losses that seem all the more tragic in retrospect: Had Clinton not been crippled by the matter of Monica Lewinsky, for instance, he might have been able to see through Social Security reforms before the Republicans got their fingers into the coffers. And that’s another theme: how steadily, corrosively damaging the whole sordid Lewinsky affair was, how clumsy Clinton was in handling it. Harris portrays a presidency in constant crisis, but also with an undeniable grandeur as Bill Clinton worked his charms on even the toughest opponents and urged a greater vision of America on those who listened.
A complement and corrective to the Clintons’ own memoirs, full of surprising turns that do much to explain the recent past—and the unfolding political present.Pub Date: June 7, 2005
ISBN: 0-375-50847-3
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
