In a diverse, impassioned book, these quick responders illustrate the impact of the pandemic with work of lasting value.
Extraordinary circumstances inspire a range of extraordinary artistic response, as this anthology attests.
As the pandemic lengthened and deepened, the response across the comics community intensified—first online, where many went viral, a turn of phrase that tinged a few shades darker in light of the virus. This volume launches the Graphic Mundi imprint from Penn State University Press. In the preface, Boileau, the publisher for the new imprint, writes that these comics “are documentary, memoiristic, meditative, lyrical, fantastic, and speculative, offering a view onto the countless ways the COVID-19 pandemic has changed lives.” All of the entries share one defining quality: immediacy of the moment, a response to the crisis from within it. A few are day-by-day diaries, including the opening narrative, by Jason Chatfield, about testing positive, in which he writes about his inability to meet his writing goal of trying “to finish a sentence.” Hatiye Garip’s “Corona Diary” is brief and wordless, achieving eloquence through a variety of shifting shapes and images. In “COVID Hardball,” Rich Johnson and Eli Neugeboren lay out a series of baseball cards of significant figures of the pandemic era, including New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern; Singapore’s Halimah Yacob; Donald Trump, who “repeatedly held large campaign rallies without requiring masking”; and Anthony Fauci, the “M.V.P. (Most Valuable Physician).” The collection also includes superheroes battling evil monsters and entries on the pandemic’s effects on Natives and other marginalized populations. Of course, there is the tragedy of death but also the inspiring poetry of trying to come to terms with what it all means. Boileau sums it up well: “Strange, perhaps, for these emotions to resonate so clearly in a medium that people often assume is either directed toward children or there for our amusement. But comics have a history of tackling weighty and mature subjects—and doing it well.” Add this book to that history.
In a diverse, impassioned book, these quick responders illustrate the impact of the pandemic with work of lasting value.Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-271-09014-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Graphic Mundi
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
A mostly compelling account of one woman’s struggles within Trumpworld.
An insider’s account of the rampant misconduct within the Trump administration, including the tumult surrounding the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.
Hutchinson, who served as an assistant to Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, gained national prominence when she testified to the House Select Committee, providing possibly the most damaging portrait of Trump’s erratic behavior to date. In her hotly anticipated memoir, the author traces the challenges and triumphs of her upbringing in New Jersey and the work (including a stint as an intern with Sen. Ted Cruz) that led her to coveted White House internships and eventual positions in the Office of Legislative Affairs and with Meadows. While the book offers few big reveals beyond her testimony (many details leaked before publication), her behind-the-scenes account of the chaotic Trump administration is intermittently insightful. Her initial portrait of Trump is less critical than those written by other former staffers, as the author gauges how his actions were seemingly stirred more by vanity and fear of appearing weak, rather than pure malevolency. For example, she recalls how he attended an event without a mask because he didn’t want to smear his face bronzer. Hutchinson also provides fairly nuanced portraits of Meadows and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who, along with Trump, eventually turned against her. She shares far more negative assessments about others in Trump’s orbit, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and adviser Rudy Giuliani, recounting how Giuliani groped her backstage during Trump’s Jan. 6 speech. The narrative lags after the author leaves the White House, but the story intensifies as she’s faced with subpoenas to testify and is forced to undergo deep soul-searching before choosing to sever ties with Trump and provide the incriminating information that could help take him down.
A mostly compelling account of one woman’s struggles within Trumpworld.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781668028285
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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