A well-written look at Fleming’s life, though the book is even better as an indictment of the anachronistic colonialism of...
Parker (The Sugar Barons: Family, Corruption, Empire, and War in the West Indies, 2011, etc.) considers Ian Fleming’s escape to Jamaica, where he created James Bond and did his best to avoid the high-society life that followed him there.
Fleming was not fond of many non-Brits, but he especially disliked Americans. About the only American Bond character who isn’t a villain is Felix Leiter, a detective Bond cooperates with and often saves. Fleming discovered Jamaica’s wonders in 1943 and quickly bought property with a private beach where he could write, using Jamaica in three of his novels. The house he built, Goldeneye, was spare and featured minimal modern conveniences. However, nature was at her best, and Fleming was happiest during the two months each year he spent in the Caribbean. It was Fleming's paradise; he loved the tropical blooms and the fascinating sea life. At the time, Jamaica was still ruled by a governor, and the racist attitudes of visitors reflected the attitude of empire. Eventually, Noël Coward became a neighbor and lifelong friend as the Jamaican tourist boom took off. Coward brought the jet-set crowd to discover the joys of island life, and anyone who was anyone showed up. Fleming, however, was asocial, heartily disliked the procession of guests and hated his wife’s parties. He isolated himself to write, forbidding guests to even walk by his window. The author parallels Fleming’s life with postwar events that planted the seed for the Bond character. He summarizes each of the Bond books as they reflect Cold War history—e.g., the Suez Crisis, the independence movements and increasing economic turmoil.
A well-written look at Fleming’s life, though the book is even better as an indictment of the anachronistic colonialism of the 1950s and the end of the British Empire.Pub Date: March 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-60598-686-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
PROFILES
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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