Most Crichton books are champion sports-cars: sleek, high-powered, engineered for an quick evening spin. This time, however, the master of the compelling read (The Andromeda Strain, Congo, etc.) tosses some jalopies in with the Ferraris in this mostly satisfying collection of 38 essays on inner- and outer-voyaging. What a traveler he is! Mt. Kilimanjaro, Bangkok, the mountains of Pakistan, the seas of Bonaire, even "Shangra-La" (the Himalayan outpost of Hunza). Objectives vary: treasure-hunting, animal-watching, mountain-climbing, whorehouse-hopping. He's at his best in the nature pieces, especially in an outstanding description of stalking a troop of mountain gorillas ("Gorillas"), an essay that captures the eeriness and poignancy of this dying branch of the proto-human tree. Many entries ("Kilimanjaro," "Cactus Teachings") describe moments of self-discovery, while a few ("Jamaica") bog down in fussing over personal relationships. Some seem to have no point at all, beyond Crichton's desire to screen his favorite home movies. A breed apart are the essays on inner space, in which Crichton comes across like a sober Shirley MacLaine as he happily chomps his way through channeling, clairvoyance, meditation, power spots, and other New Age goodies. This out-on-a-limb stuff culminates in a masterful defense ("Postscript: Skeptics at Cal Tech") of the legitimacy of parapsychological research, one of the best essays of its kind anywhere. Also noteworthy: nine essays recalling his traumatic days at Harvard Medical School. Considering the decline in quality of Crichton's novels (culminating in the silliness of Sphere) and the excellence of many of these essays, one wonders whether his mature talent doesn't flourish best in nonfiction. With a bit of pruning, this would have been a brilliant travel album. As it is, the memorable snapshots easily outnumber the turkeys.
Pub Date: April 25, 1988
ISBN: 0060509058
Page Count: 404
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1988
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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