A fascinating look into a significant period in the life of a much-loved literary figure.
A new work of nonfiction by a leading force of gay rights activism.
Duberman (Jews Queer Germans: A Novel/History, 2017, etc.) has vast experience with the countless riots and uprisings that took place throughout the 20th century to establish an equal playing field for the gay community across the United States. Here, he takes readers through his varying states of mind as he experienced the 1970s and ’80s as a 40- and 50-something gay man. “What I’d forgotten while entertaining my fantasy of rebirth was how deeply wedded I’d become to security and routine,” he writes. “Nearing fifty, even a malcontent like me had learned that life’s most distinguishing feature was its precariousness.” In fact, after his mother’s death, which took a devastating toll on his psyche, Duberman had to navigate the solitude of adulthood without a parental reference point. Living in New York City during its “glory days,” he was on the front lines of the city’s cultural effervescence. Working as a writer and scholar, he engaged aggressively in cocaine culture—“used in moderation, and for specific occasions only, I told myself, coke confirmed the countercultural cliché about better living through chemistry”—until a violent heart attack gave him pause and an incentive to restructure. He worked hard to re-engage in politics after the election of Ronald Reagan, and he endured the horrors of the AIDS crisis without personally suffering from the disease. While Duberman’s story now feels like one of the many that developed and unraveled during a confusing time in American history, the author’s style and approach to recounting it are novel. Divided into highly specific thematic sections, the book is sharp and engaging, with tasteful anecdotes that anchor Duberman not in a historical lineage but firmly within his own personal journey. This highly intelligent book is not just another contribution to gay history; it is also an important pillar in the author’s literary biography.
A fascinating look into a significant period in the life of a much-loved literary figure.Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8223-7070-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Duke Univ.
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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