A pleasant, if sometimes-monotonous, account that may appeal most to younger readers.
A memoir that recounts a young girl’s childhood adventures on the American prairie and her lifelong Christian faith.
Yexley (Not My Plan, 2015) pens a charming remembrance of growing up on a farm in Columbia, South Dakota, in the 1950s and ’60s, surrounded by loving family members and farm animals, and expressions of unwavering religious commitment. She writes about her early years of going to school, caring for animals, going on family drives through Nevada and California, and taking piano and cornet lessons; she also describes how the Vietnam War affected her small, intimate community. One particularly endearing chapter tells the story of the young author helping her grandmother take care of chickens, and in doing so, learning about responsibility, hard work, and finding lessons in her mistakes. She also learned about “dressing” chickens—preparing them for killing—and recalls the sadness of witnessing her first butchering. From a young age, she was protective of her younger sister, Yvonne, admired her older brother, Ray, and was fascinated by her grandparents’ many hobbies. Christianity plays a major part in many vignettes and it’s shown to have been an important component of her family’s daily struggles and successes. At the end of each chapter, she includes “Lessons Learned” and “Questions to Ponder,” such as “How do you overcome your fear?” and “Have you ever lost a pet?” However, these lessons and questions can sometimes feel reminiscent of those in children’s books. Overall, the memoir is overwhelmingly positive in tone. As a result, however, Yexley seems to gloss over some of the more serious moments of her childhood; for example, she only gently alludes to corporal punishment, poverty, and the isolation of middle America. She also has only complimentary things to say about each of her family members, and these purely positive descriptions render them somewhat colorless as characters. (Photos of the author’s family members are included throughout.)
A pleasant, if sometimes-monotonous, account that may appeal most to younger readers.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973603-26-9
Page Count: 124
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2018
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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