A competent work intended to encourage others in similar situations, but will appeal most to fans of Greenlaw's previous...
America’s only female swordfish-boat captain returns with a straightforward account of the challenges she faced in becoming the legal guardian of a sexually abused teenager and in balancing unexpected motherhood with her reclusive lifestyle on a tiny island off the coast of Maine.
A resident of Isle au Haut, whose population at the time numbered less than 50 in the off-season, Greenlaw (Seaworthy, 2010, etc.) and her community were disturbed to realize they did not live in a “[p]ristine” place. Upon learning that a pedophile resided among them, they rallied to aid Mariah, a 15-year-old who had moved to the island with her stepfather’s alcoholic brother, “Uncle” Ken. Greenlaw charts the course of her earlier choice to live a childless life through events that led to Mariah’s rescue, Ken’s arrest, trial and conviction, and its aftermath. The author’s no-nonsense approach to daily life led to honest admissions of selfishness and her desire for solitude, but she gradually warmed to the realization that guardianship involved more than providing material needs and security. Secondary themes of sisterhood and of developing female friendships later in life add depth to a work that otherwise explores a sensitive topic in familiar ways—from initial outrage to healing, wariness to acceptance, and an adolescent's tumultuous beginnings to high school graduation and acceptance to college. Though descriptions of emotions occasionally step into cliché, Greenlaw is at her finest when drawing parallels between life at sea and her new role as a mother.
A competent work intended to encourage others in similar situations, but will appeal most to fans of Greenlaw's previous Isle au Haut installment, The Lobster Chronicles.Pub Date: March 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-0670025176
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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