An intriguing hybrid: part biography, part creative interrogation/reimagination of the life of an elusive Irishwoman who lived among the Aborigines in the Australian outback during the first half of the 20th century. How do you write a biography of a figure who relentlessly changed the facts of her life along the way, yet whose copious diary entries were full of intimate details about her sojourn among the Aborigines? Blackburn (The Emperor's Last Stand, not reviewed) attempts various literary and research stratagems—chief among them being her admitting that it is impossible to know much with certainty: ``Daisy Bates was a liar, of that I am sure, but the extent and the exact details of her lies remain a difficult territory for which no good maps have survived.'' As Blackburn's account of her attempt to uncover the facts about Bates gets interlaced with suppositions, false hints, and inconsistencies, the author more and more consciously identifies with her subject. We know Bates was given a government grant to study the Aborigines' customs, that she learned the language of the various totem clans, argued staunchly in the face of skeptics that they were cannibalistic, championed their rights to a large area undisturbed by whites, and lived with them in relative isolation for over 30 years. But even when the narrative goes from the first person of Blackburn as self-conscious biographer to the long central section in the reconstructed voice of Bates herself, we never learn too much about the relation of the Aborigines to Kabbarli (meaning grandmother), as Bates was called by them. Among the most fully pieced-together experiences are the ceremony in which she was made the ``Keeper of the Totems'' and the building of the transcontinental railroad through the Great Victoria Desert, which hastened the destruction of the land and the indigenous culture. A cryptic exploration into the avowedly subjective, murky terrain called biography, with occasional lyrical insights.
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-42001-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
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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