A heavily detailed and highly readable account of the author's lineage.
Seasoned journalist Whitaker reports the history of his parents' lives. Now managing editor of CNN Worldwide, the former NBC Washington bureau chief and former editor of Newsweek, the author decided, one year to the hour after his father's death, to write this book. The structure is largely chronological, beginning with his parents' meeting at Swarthmore in the mid ’50s, when his father, Syl, was one of the only black students and his white mother, Jeanne, taught French. Despite Syl's adultery, they were married for six years and had two sons, Mark and his younger brother, Paul, until Syl asked for a divorce. An estimable expert on Nigeria, Syl was asked to start Princeton's first African-American Studies program, though he was eventually fired because of his drinking. In and out of his sons' lives, often failing to pay child support, Syl weathered numerous trips to rehab, and his alcoholism derailed what might have been a stellar career. He never stayed at any college for too long, due in no small part to the problems that resulted from his womanizing. As a boy, Whitaker struggled to forgive his absences. His anger, manifested itself as compulsive eating, anorexia and long periods of being out of touch with his father. The author chronicles how he made peace with his father, despite his many failings, and how he built for a fulfilling marriage and career. It's difficult to follow the many names and threads, especially in the first half, but the writing comes across as honest and wholly engaging. A fascinating personal treatise on racial identity and complicated father-son dynamics.
Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-2754-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
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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