A chatty, name-dropping little work based on the notion that actors are, or become, the characters they portray in film and on stage.
Like those who think of actor John Wayne as a real-life He-Man, Jimmy Stewart as a sort of grown-up Scout master and Humphrey Bogart as a genuine tough guy, cultural critic Lord (Masters of Professional Writing Program/Univ. of Southern California; Astro Turf: The Private Life of Rocket Science, 2005, etc.) sees a feminist in Elizabeth Taylor. The author analyzes Taylor’s portrayal of characters from the spunky little girl who rode her horse to victory in National Velvet to the strident middle-aged wife in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and in her stage performance as the fierce Regina in The Little Foxes. Into what is essentially a glowing mini-biography of the actress, Lord inserts detailed plot summaries of Taylor's films, which she admits to having watched repeatedly , along with tidbits about Taylor's several husbands and some of her fellow actors: Richard Burton, Eddie Fisher, Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson and others. Besides finding material for her thesis in the scripts of Taylor's movies, the author interviewed people who knew her, worked with her, were related to her or wrote about her, including gossip columnist Liz Smith and Burton's daughter Kate. In Lord’s view, the actress' work in the fight against AIDS in the 1980s demonstrates that roles played by Taylor as a young woman influenced her thinking about social justice as an older woman. Not central to the book but an informatory sidelight is the author’s account of the Hays Code, which dictated the moral content of Hollywood films from the early ’30s through most of the ’60s. It forbade nudity, adultery, sexual perversion, miscegenation, drug use and irreverence to religion and the flag. How the code shaped scripts and how directors worked around the restrictions is a story worth telling. Light reading most likely to appeal to star-struck fans of People magazine.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8027-1669-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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