An interesting and detailed account.
A well-balanced biography of one of the most powerful women in Chinese history, Madame Chiang Kai-shek (née Soong May-ling), wife of Nationalist leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.
Li, a writer for the Financial Times and the Economist, begins by sketching out the young May-ling’s life. Born into a rich family in Shanghai, May-ling came to America at an early age, studying at Wesleyan College in Georgia before ultimately graduating from Wellesley in 1917. In subsequent chapters, Li carefully examines how the young May-ling’s grounding in American culture and her fluency in English would prove vital for American-Chinese relations. May-ling endured a painful return to China shortly after graduating, principally because she struggled to adjust to the wildly different lifestyle, but by 1926, she had met military officer Chiang Kai-shek. Kai-shek rose to become Generalissimo shortly after, and the couple soon wed, although he had to divorce his first wife, rid himself of a few concubines and pledge his future to Christianity before May-ling’s family would give their blessing. From this moment, Li’s prose becomes increasingly absorbing as she details May-ling’s rise as advisor to and English interpreter for her husband as he trotted the globe to meet with various dignitaries. While Li shows great admiration for May-ling’s staunch opposition to Communism and her enviable oratory skills, which often saw her digging deep into the English language to use words even native English speakers found puzzling, she is also highly critical of her unwillingness to truly break free of her conservative shackles. This criticism is most pointed when Li examines the decadent lifestyle May-ling indulged in, which sharply countered that of her fellow countrymen—a factor that appears to have been frequently overlooked by those infatuated with the glamorous, charming woman. Madame Chiang Kai-shek died in 2003, at the age of 106.
An interesting and detailed account.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-87113-933-2
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2006
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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