A well-written, thorough scrutiny of a landmark speech that illustrated Lincoln’s vision and clarified his future purposes.
Johnson (History/Miami Univ.; The Dreyfus Affair: Honor and Politics in the Belle Époque, 1999) analyzes how, when, where and by whom the Gettysburg Address was written.
The author ably debunks the myth of Lincoln scribbling a few words on the back of a yellow envelope on the train to the Pennsylvania cemetery dedication. “It seemed odd that the origins and writing of a speech that had become such an important part of American identity should be surrounded by so many questions,” he writes. Lincoln scholars and Civil War buffs will be delighted with Johnson’s meticulous investigation of the few days Lincoln had to prepare a “few appropriate remarks” at the site of the battle that was the turning point of the Civil War. There is barely an hour for which he doesn’t specify Lincoln’s location or to whom he spoke. There is no doubt that the president wrote the first draft of a two-page text in Washington, D.C. The second page disappeared the day before the dedication, and a pencil-written page took its place, forming the Nicolay (named after Lincoln’s private secretary, John George Nicolay) or delivery text copy. Lincoln went away to revise his speech at least twice after his arrival in Gettysburg and also made revisions as he delivered the speech. The author carefully compares not only the five handwritten copies, but also the many post-delivery documents and revisions. Even Lincoln wrote out a revision, based on many of the iterations that were available. Focusing on involved persons, word changes, capitalization and even paragraph breaks, Johnson has exhausted every possible facet of this speech and the people who may have suggested words or phrases.
A well-written, thorough scrutiny of a landmark speech that illustrated Lincoln’s vision and clarified his future purposes.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7006-1933-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Univ. Press of Kansas
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
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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