There's no semblance or pretense of balance in this unauthorized biography of New York's scandal-plagued three-term senator, Alfonse D'Amato—a lack that is both the book's failing and the source of its fascination. The only kind words Lurie (The King Makers, 1971) has for the man who rose from the bottom ranks of Long Island's Nassau County Republican Party to become one of the nation's most powerful politicians are compliments for his adroitness in evading indictment. The author's tone is nasty, and D'Amato's side of the story is nowhere to be found in a rambling, sometimes tedious chronicle. All that said, the book is a must-read for students of American political history. Lurie has assembled a mass of evidence from the public record, from his attendance at several sensational trials, and from interviews. He takes the reader from scandal to scandal and describes, often with incredulity, the way in which D'Amato has escaped unscathed each time. The trials are the heart of the book. In the first, in 1980-81, D'Amato mentor Joseph Margiotta, head of the Nassau County Republican Party, was sent to jail for taking bribes from insurance agents (including D'Amato's father) doing business with the county. In the second, in 1985, a letter written by D'Amato was a key piece of evidence in proving the party guilty of demanding kickbacks from county employees. In the third, D'Amato's brother, Armand, was sent to jail in 1993 for soliciting bribes from a defense contractor. It is Lurie's contention that in each case—and half a dozen other brushes with the law that he describes in detail—D'Amato was saved by his consummate skills in maintaining plausible deniability or by some stroke of fortune. Senator Pothole, a nickname D'Amato loves, has progressed in 32 years from dunning sanitation workers to leading an attack on the president of the United States for alleged ethical lapses. Anyone who would understand this remarkable journey must read Lurie's book.
Pub Date: June 1, 1994
ISBN: 1-55972-227-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Birch Lane Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 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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