Leave it to Heller to have a bout with paralysis and death that brims with life and humor. The story of his struggle with Guillain-Barré syndrome—a rare, debilitating polyneuritis—is harmoniously co-written by the author of Catch 22 and the old friend who became his valet, secretary, business manager, and part-time nurse. The inscrutable fears and cosmic injustices in Heller's fiction here become real, but the account of his fall and resurrection, though frightening, is always hopeful, even joyful. The subject is not disease, but the good things in life: friendship, romance, freedom, Chinese food. Along with objective observations of his stubbornly disobedient body, Heller relates his efforts to pitch woo while paralyzed and tells how the disease became an issue at his unfriendly divorce proceedings. Throughout, Heller is witty and wonderful. Once a cheerful gourmand, he is reduced to taking all his meals through a tube. When a nurse offers to pour some champagne through his tube at New Year's, he passes in deference to his unwell body, noting "Besides, I never could abide the taste of any but the best champagne." Another of the frustrations of paralysis is not being able to bite one's fingernails. Vogel—former herring taster, former textiles executive, former sculptor—writes with clarity and humor, if with less stylistic bravado than his novelist buddy. The collaboration—done in alternating chapters, with occasional hilarious cross-interjections—is effective. Among other things, Vogel's candid appreciation of Heller's legendary grumpiness gives dimension to the story. Both authors would have us believe they were simply two men who didn't have any choice. Was Heller courageous in the face of his devastating disease? He notes sardonically that he couldn't have flailed his arms, beat the ground, or put a pistol to his head if he had wanted to—after all, he was paralyzed. Was Vogel selflessly devoted to his longtime buddy? Hell, he didn't have a job anyway, and he got to live in Heller's great apartment, wear Heller's clothes, sign Heller's checks, and even take out Heller's girlfriend. Their literary collaboration is just as fortuitous. Heller is sharply observant and amusing, even in a hospital bed. Vogel is a character, and handy with anecdotes. Beneath its sarcasms, then, an enjoyable, life-affirming account of friendship and courage.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1985
ISBN: 0743247175
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1985
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.
In her first nonfiction book, novelist Grande (Dancing with Butterflies, 2009, etc.) delves into her family’s cycle of separation and reunification.
Raised in poverty so severe that spaghetti reminded her of the tapeworms endemic to children in her Mexican hometown, the author is her family’s only college graduate and writer, whose honors include an American Book Award and International Latino Book Award. Though she was too young to remember her father when he entered the United States illegally seeking money to improve life for his family, she idolized him from afar. However, she also blamed him for taking away her mother after he sent for her when the author was not yet 5 years old. Though she emulated her sister, she ultimately answered to herself, and both siblings constantly sought affirmation of their parents’ love, whether they were present or not. When one caused disappointment, the siblings focused their hopes on the other. These contradictions prove to be the narrator’s hallmarks, as she consistently displays a fierce willingness to ask tough questions, accept startling answers, and candidly render emotional and physical violence. Even as a girl, Grande understood the redemptive power of language to define—in the U.S., her name’s literal translation, “big queen,” led to ridicule from other children—and to complicate. In spelling class, when a teacher used the sentence “my mamá loves me” (mi mamá me ama), Grande decided to “rearrange the words so that they formed a question: ¿Me ama mi mamá? Does my mama love me?”
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6177-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
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