The authors have pieced together an illuminating life portrait without extraneous biographical material, focusing intensely...
A visual appreciation of “the most photographed American of the nineteenth century.”
No, that distinction does not go to Abraham Lincoln or even Mark Twain, but rather Frederick Douglass (1818-1895). In his excellent epilogue, Henry Louis Gates outlines Douglass’ love of photography, and Douglass’ great-great-great grandson Kenneth B. Morris Jr. provides the afterword. Stauffer (English, American Studies, African American Studies/Harvard Univ.; Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, 2008, etc.), Trodd (American Literature/Nottingham Univ.; A Reusable Past: Abolitionist Memory in the Long Civil Rights Movement, 2015, etc.), and Bernier (African American Studies/Univ. of Nottingham; Suffering and Sunset: World War I in the Art and Life of Horace Pippin, 2015, etc.) provide an impressive collection of pictures with short descriptions of when and where the photos were taken. There are also reproductions of three of Douglass’ four speeches about photography, which give a wonderful picture of the man, his intellect, and his devotion to his main cause, abolition. Readers can feel the intensity of his love of photography and his powerful feelings about freedom. He felt that photographs were truthful images, despite the editing technology involved, and the strong effect of photos sent to the South contributed to secession. The photos of Douglass show a man as he evolved from first gaining his freedom in 1838. Most are head-and-shoulder shots, but his direct, defiant glare and his clenched fists indicate a relentlessly dedicated man who knew what he must accomplish. As his fame on the lecture circuit and his place as the foremost black leader of the 19th century grew, so the images show a dignified elder statesman who is still intense and wrathful. Also included are caricatures, sculptures, and political cartoons illustrating just how powerful the man had become.
The authors have pieced together an illuminating life portrait without extraneous biographical material, focusing intensely on their subject’s belief in the strength of photographs.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-87140-468-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 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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