A captivating paean to Whitman combined with an unblinking self-examination.
A renowned poet uses Walt Whitman’s poetry to mirror his own life and to demonstrate the power of words.
Doty, who has won the National Book Award for Poetry (2008) and numerous other prizes, is the author of 10 poetry collections (Deep Lane, 2015, etc.) and three memoirs (Dog Years, 2007, etc.). In this new volume, the author combines biography and poetical analysis of Whitman (whom he’s greatly admired for most of his life) with autobiographical material, much of which details his romantic and domestic relationships with men. Throughout, Doty displays a number of his gifts and writing techniques. He chronicles his visits to sites relevant to Whitman’s story, including Brooklyn; Manhattan (“New York pulls me up out of myself, just as it must have done for Whitman”); his final home in Camden, New Jersey; and his impressive tomb in Camden, which, Doty writes, Whitman visited while it was under construction. He reveals a profound understanding of Whitman’s life and poetry, paying close attention to “Song of Myself,” “Calamus,” “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” and others. Doty also alludes periodically to other poets (especially Hart Crane and Emily Dickinson as well as some contemporary colleagues) and discusses Whitman’s friendships with Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde. Through Doty’s eyes, we see Whitman not only as the writer who transformed American poetry (Doty credits him for inventing free verse), but as a tireless self-promoter (he reviewed himself from time to time) and as a man of many passions. Fans of Whitman will surely enjoy Doty’s extensive passages of exegesis, and many readers will admire the author’s occasional descriptions of his own revisions of his ideas about Whitman’s diction and poetic design. Throughout, the author exudes an exuberance about life and words that rivals that of his subject. Also informative (and necessary) are Doty’s evocations of 19th-century Brooklyn and New York City.
A captivating paean to Whitman combined with an unblinking self-examination.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-393-07022-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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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