A funny and occasionally insightful memoir of an Iranian-American comedian finding a voice in showbiz.
The struggles and successes of "the Persian Eddie Murphy.”
Iranian-American comedian, actor and first-time author Jobrani tells a fish-out-of-water story, all the while maintaining a self-deprecating tone—e.g., regarding immigrant parents: “I don’t think immigrant parents really understand the ratings system. They think that PG…means that a movie will give ‘parental guidance’ to your kid while you go shopping for gold jewelry, chandeliers, and marble counters at the mall." The author also recounts his desire to blend in and be seen as just another rich kid in Northern California, albeit one whose "loud and brown" father picked him up from soccer practice in a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. Cultural typecasting followed Jobrani throughout his fledgling Hollywood career, perhaps most shockingly when he caught his big break at the renowned Comedy Store in Los Angeles in 1999 and was asked to dress in “Middle Eastern garb,” like “the Persian equivalent of blackface.” The author hits his stride with his chronicle of the period after 9/11, when he went on the offensive with his comedy, sharing his political views and observations in his stand-up act and on cable TV specials. Jobrani embraced the role of comedy in healing after 9/11 and, later, with two other comics on the international Axis of Evil Comedy Tour. This mission and his tales from the road comprise the bulk of the book. Jobrani believes it is his duty to bring these issues to light in a humorous, accessible way—e.g., when he quips that he is not involved in jihad, explaining he "lost interest altogether once [jihadis] started putting bombs in their underwear.” He also offers this practical advice: “Don't Wear A Backpack At Home Depot.”
A funny and occasionally insightful memoir of an Iranian-American comedian finding a voice in showbiz.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-1476749983
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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
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