Well-researched, crisply perceptive writing on art.
A debut memoir recounts how a self-confessed introvert tried to make it as a painter but was left confounded by the art world’s expectations and restrictions.
Downey’s erudite and thought-provoking book opens with a brief recollection of an art class that emphasized the importance of communication over technique. Having strong convictions about how art should be taught, she quit the class. Before becoming a mother, the author worked in publishing in Boston. Parenthood left her little “brain space” to create, but after her children were in school, she decided to become an artist. A keen writer, she set up a blog about her journey and her first steps in the painting world. Downey found the social aspects of her work exhausting, with her introversion leaving her feeling like an outsider. The author looked at the role of contemporary artists, examining the cult of celebrity and self-promotion and the necessity of being fluent in “artspeak” and forging connections in an “ultra-social, extrovert” society. Downey’s odyssey became one of self-understanding, as she dissected her creative drives and the personal roots of her consternation regarding societal expectations. The author describes her own creative process with forthright clarity: “I plan, then I execute my plan. It may sound uninspired, but I argue that it is just as valid a way to paint as any other.” In doing so, she makes readers reconsider why artists are expected to be spontaneous and extroverted. Downey employs a sound knowledge of art history to illustrate her arguments. For example, she discusses the anonymity of painters and sculptors in ancient Egyptian and Greek civilizations in contrast to the “personal fame” of artists from the Renaissance onward. The author also offers illuminating moments of introspection: “Each of these issues around art, which all came down to matters of identity and social status, brought up how I felt about myself in the world.” Some readers may be disappointed that Downey did not proceed to become a professional painter, but her memoir remains inspirational as a thorough exploration of the creative self and a search for personal satisfaction. This work will prove an invaluable handbook for readers trying to gain a foothold in the art world and for those feeling ostracized by it.
Well-researched, crisply perceptive writing on art.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9716775-2-4
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Green Tea Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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