A ribald memoir of self-discovery that is not for the squeamish.
Journalist and comedian Stadtmiller, best known for describing her dating life in detail for the readers of the New York Post, covers the decade of her 30s in an uninhibited account of bad behavior.
In 2005, the author, now a columnist for the Daily Beast, turned 30, got divorced after a marriage of five years, and started a new job at the Post. She wrote features and covered celebrities, and then she found her niche writing a dating column. When she wasn't writing, she was drinking to the point of frequent blackouts, going through “binge-and-starve cycles,” and having a series of one-night stands with people she often didn’t recognize in the morning. As she writes, her life had become “a cocktail of excess.” With her therapists, Stadtmiller delved into her past and found some plausible explanations for her behavior: Her parents, she writes, both had psychological problems, she was sexually assaulted at a party when she was a teenager, and, later, her parents failed to show sufficient interest in her career. Throughout, the author name-drops with enthusiasm. At one point, for example, she claims that she was simultaneously dating Aaron Sorkin, Keith Olbermann, and Lloyd Grove. Eventually, the memoir takes the shape of a redemption narrative. Stadtmiller hit bottom several times, joined AA and other recovery programs, realized she couldn’t count on a guy to make her life worth living, met “one of the kindest, most thoughtful guys I've dated,” and got married again. Presumably, she is currently living happily-ever-after. More intriguing than the contours of this familiar story are the darkly humorous details of working for the Post and the other publications where she has worked or freelanced, including xoJane, TimeOut, Maxim, and Penthouse.
A ribald memoir of self-discovery that is not for the squeamish.Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-7403-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2018
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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