A spirited and moving memoir about how “it’s never too late to try something new.”
An essayist and nonfiction writer’s account of how she was forced to start over after age 60.
In 2012, Maran (A Theory of Small Earthquakes, 2012, etc.) was preparing to leave the Oakland house where she had raised two sons and lived with her now-estranged wife. Facing a future with no money and less time to reinvent herself, she headed to the Los Angeles home of two friends. There, she slept on their couch while starting a new job as a copywriter for a clothing company staffed by stylish 20- and 30-somethings whose “good looks and confidence conjure[d] happy childhoods in interesting neighborhoods.” As her finances improved, Maran realized that she now had to rebuild a social life that living as part of one couple or another for more than 40 years had spared her from doing. A large social and professional network allowed her to quickly begin meeting others, and soon she turned into a “friendship speed dater.” Her life on the upswing, the author eventually moved into a rental cottage only to have the fragile stability she had created upset by divorce and the death of her father. Her LA friends then pushed her into the dating world. Maran reluctantly obliged by going to get her first Brazilian wax and then engaging in a post-marital one-night fling with a younger woman. Shortly afterward, she joined an online singles site and became involved with a beautiful 50-something businesswoman, Helena, who helped her deal with the unexpected loss of her job. The relationship was comfortable but not passionate, and in the end, Maran was forced to admit that she ultimately did not love Helena. By turns poignant and funny, the book not only shows how one feisty woman coped with a “Plan B life” she didn’t want or expect with a little help from her friends. It also celebrates how she transformed uncertainty into a glorious opportunity for continued late-life personal growth.
A spirited and moving memoir about how “it’s never too late to try something new.”Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-57413-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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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