A quirky book that unfortunately does not help further the dialogue about the difficult experience of coming out.
A series of essays that document the difficult task of self-acceptance.
After years without a relationship or a stable sexual preference, former BuzzFeed editor Heaney (Dear Emma, 2016, etc.) decided to take matters into her own hands and go at the same speed as her feelings—frantically, somewhat aimlessly—toward the uncertain question that loomed over her head: am I gay? It started with a feeling of displacement. “This world,” she writes, “in its forceful femaleness, was something that greatly appealed to me. I did not feel a part of it, but I found myself longing to be.” Then the author discovered The L Word, an all-female TV show centered around the lives of gay women. Quickly, Heaney’s desire increased. While in graduate school at the University of Minnesota, Heaney had her first girl crush, which ultimately opened the doors of her desire and allowed her to feel something real for another woman. The author organizes the book in essays, or extended moments, punctuated by brief memos in which she describes various interactions with women throughout her life. Though Heaney provides a singular look at the experience of coming out, the essays often feel predictable. For example: “I was fascinated by lesbians being lesbians and talking about lesbians, to a degree that didn’t seem fitting for someone who now identified as one herself.” Sometimes, Heaney seems to be living according to a guidebook of expectations of what lesbians are supposed to feel, act like, and talk about, based on a society that more often than not limits their liberties. Furthermore, the author’s voice, though relatable, is too frequently self-congratulatory. She discusses her previous memoir, Never Have I Ever (2014), so many times that readers might lose interest in wanting to read it.
A quirky book that unfortunately does not help further the dialogue about the difficult experience of coming out.Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-18095-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
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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