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The Last Promise

Name: The Last Promise
Author: Kristin M Mooney
ISBN: 978-1499188141

by Kristin M Mooney ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 17, 2014

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Hue explains the difficult process of coping with her husband Paul’s unexpected terminal illness in this debut memoir.
The author begins her book with a heartfelt dedication, immediately revealing that her husband did, in fact, lose his battle with cancer. This knowledge makes it both frustrating and admirable to watch Hue put her faith in the seemingly endless treatments, believing that her husband will get better and that their lives will return to normal. It all started with an ominous phone call, in which Paul, an Army translator, informed the author that he had to leave Iraq in order to get a proper medical examination of a lump on his neck. She frantically made a series of calls to loved ones as the reality of the situation set in, and she admitted that she didn’t want him to come home from Iraq under such circumstances. All the while, however, she remained calm for their young son, Tyler, and hopeful that things would work themselves out with God’s grace. Hue describes in straightforward detail the complexities of Paul’s diagnosis and treatment plan, even going so far as to include pages of transcribed conversations between Paul and his doctors. As the situation grows increasingly bleak, Hue’s voice remains composed, optimistic and informative. However, the memoir’s emotional quality is sometimes suppressed by the narration’s sterile tone, particularly in the first few chapters; some readers may find the long passages of clinical language detailing the treatment plans difficult to get through. However, when Hue digs deeper into the devastating details of her husband’s decline (“The nurses said that singing was his way of dealing with the pain, but it was getting harder and harder”), the memoir becomes incredibly moving. This book is particularly recommended for readers who have lost loved ones to cancer and who may be interested in the various coping methods that Hue employed.
An often touching memoir about the pain of loss and the strength one can find in true love.

Pub Date: June 17, 2014

ISBN: 978-1499188141

Page Count: 182

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: July 24, 2014

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

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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.

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor will it to readers of Krakauer's narrative. (4 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)