A concise, well-researched biography of a self-righteous, opinionated man who embodied the convictions and contradictions of...
The political and moral views of the man who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Francis Scott Key (1779-1843) was an influential lawyer, serving for eight years as a district attorney. As historian Leepson (Lafayette: Lessons in Leadership from the Idealist General, 2011, etc.) portrays him, Key was devoutly religious, politically conservative and ardently patriotic. He opposed the American invasion of Canada that began the War of 1812, calling the war “a lump of wickedness,” but by September 1814, after witnessing bombs bursting, rockets hissing and cannonballs rumbling when the British attacked Baltimore, his patriotism overwhelmed him. Seeing the American flag flying after the British retreated, he penned the verses that became the nation’s anthem. Days later, the poem was published in a Baltimore newspaper, indicating that it was to be sung “to the tune of ‘To Anacreon in Heaven,’ ” a popular English song well known in America. Key was also involved directly in the crucial issue of his time: slavery. A slaveholder himself, he defended in court both slaves seeking their freedom and owners refusing to release their human property. He was a founder and proselytizing member of the American Colonization Society, whose mission was to encourage emancipated slaves to settle in Africa. Key resented the abolitionist movement, believing that freed slaves posed a threat of unrest, and would foment rebellion against slaveholders. Besides his tireless work for the ACS, Key founded the American Bible Society and served as its vice president, and he was a supporter of the American Tract Society, which published and distributed Christian literature aimed to convert nonbelievers. Although Key was a “tepid Federalist who loathed partisan politics,” he became an avid proponent of Andrew Jackson, sympathetic to his campaign against government corruption and his desire to limit federal intrusion into states’ affairs.
A concise, well-researched biography of a self-righteous, opinionated man who embodied the convictions and contradictions of his tumultuous times.Pub Date: June 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-137-27828-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
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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