A golden-hued, folksy account of a generous farming community.
Anecdotes and history of an East Texas town, with a corncob-pipe theme.
Nostalgia and old-fashioned community spirit rule in the series of anecdotes about the lives and times of the 150 farming and small-business people who lived in Fairdale, Texas. Its lifespan was little more than a century before it disappeared under the waters of the Toledo Bend Reservoir in the 1960s. Oglesbee (San Augustine County, 2010) portrays the town’s social, economic and daily life during the early 20th century, based on reminiscences of residents and their descendants. It was hard going splitting wood, plowing by mule, nurturing crops threatened by the vagaries of nature, tending cattle and worrying about feeding a large family. An iron will, a belief in God and a cheerful community spirit seemed to pull everyone through. Livestock and domestic animals were almost part of the family. Bossy, one family’s cow, had the habit of munching on wild onions and bitter weeds, which made her milk undrinkable. Old Devil, a mule, possessed a cantankerous spirit but reliably pulled the plow and did the heavy lifting around the farm. Snip and Goode, two faithful dogs, showed astonishing instinct in looking after a herd of cows one night when a farmer was too ill to move. Children grew up surrounded by nature, amusing and enjoying themselves, without any of the luxuries available to big-city families. Fairdale’s claim to lasting fame is a possible/probable link with Aaron Burr, the U.S. vice president under Thomas Jefferson. Oglesbee researched the link meticulously (many of the town’s inhabitants were named Burr). A question that arises in the mind of the cynical reader is whether all the folk in the town were so openhearted and full of good spirit. Not a breath of scandal touches the chronicle. “No one knows where this place is but God and us,” is the comment of one former citizen. That is about the best epitaph any small town can have.
A golden-hued, folksy account of a generous farming community.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-1484033272
Page Count: 196
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2013
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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