An entertaining memoir about a successful corporate career.
Morton’s autobiography focuses on his career path from the ordinary world of restaurant management to the exciting milieu of corporate speechwriting.
In his debut, the author offers self-deprecating humor and business insight as he tells his life story. It spans from his college days to when he launched his own communications firm and became a husband and father. Morton recalls when he was a bar manager in college and had to fire the most attractive girl on campus for workplace drunkenness: “If she weren’t so pretty, I wouldn’t have fired her.” He then explains his reasoning: If the bar were to earn a profit, the staff had to stop giving away free drinks, and “[i]f the prettiest girl in school could be fired, so could they!” He also remembers his stint as a restaurant-management trainee after college, during which he was trying to impress a waitress; however, she thought that he was mentally disabled, because “[w]ith my garbage bag apron splattered with crab bits and my DeWayne hat, I cut a fine figure.” There are other funny stories from his youth, such as those involving an arrest for a minor traffic infraction while riding his scooter, an ice-cream–eating contest gone wrong, and his time as a reclusive DJ. But, he notes, his life improved dramatically after he completed his MBA and got a job with American Airlines. At this point, the memoir seems destined to fizzle, with the author stuck in a cubicle doing financial analytics—but then Morton reveals that he was promoted to speechwriter for the company’s CEO. He goes on to provide a number of insightful, often funny recollections from his 20-year career writing speeches, press releases and corporate policy memos, addressing everything from corporate turnaround efforts to labor negotiations. Overall, the memoir works best when it reveals Morton’s transformation from a “funny kid who skated through business school” to a “sage business advisor who helped shape corporate policy.” Along with his many personal reflections, he offers readers valuable advice about remaining courageously true to oneself.
An entertaining memoir about a successful corporate career.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500457433
Page Count: 234
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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