A brutally honest light shone on dark depths.
A memoir soaked in divorce, alcoholism, failed suicide attempts, but also hope.
Growing up in North Dakota, Minnesota and Portland, Ore., the author is the second of five children. Shy and sensitive, she cowers in school, terrified of drawing attention to herself. She’s ashamed of her family’s grinding poverty and fearful of her abusive, alcoholic father. Contrasted with this grim existence are Loehr’s wonderfully rendered reminisces of weeklong summer visits to her grandparents, where she picks raspberries, buys penny candy and plays dress up with “Grandma’s old dresses and hats and purses and high heels.” But life at home grows more chaotic when her father abandons the family for another woman and refuses to pay child support. While her mother works, attempting to support a family of six, the author, then 14, and her sister sneak out and get drunk. At 18, Loehr gets pregnant, fails at attempts to abort her own baby and resigns to marry Dane, the baby’s father. The next few years include having two more children and trying to keep a shaky marriage together with her abusive, alcoholic husband while riding a financial roller coaster of great success followed by crashing bankruptcy. Loehr drinks heavily and grows increasingly unhappy. Dane leaves her, and she finds herself incapacitated, lost in a maelstrom of wrenching depression, exhaustion and even a hospital stay with a team of doctors trying to cure her. At rock bottom, she concocts a list of ways to commit suicide: She tries to overdose on pills but is rushed to the hospital; next, she tries to electrocute herself but fails. The third attempt, with a gun, leaves her severely maimed. But at this point, she gains the will to live. From there, it’s a gutsy walk down an agonizing road marked by physical recovery and, through AA, a spiritual recovery. What follows is well-described personal success, years of sobriety, a true sense of self, and finally, deservedly, the ability to reflect upon and marvel at her accomplishments. The narrative flows smoothly, but there are times when complicated situations seem to beg for more sophisticated writing. However, much of the book’s appeal lies in its simplicity, and many of its stronger moments are those captured with clear, simple sensory details: “The memory scent of color crayons and old hymnals washes over me,” she writes. Her total, awful desperation is captured here, alive but fortunately caged in the past.
A brutally honest light shone on dark depths.Pub Date: June 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475227598
Page Count: 150
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
