Enriched by Paterniti’s singular art of storytelling, this is a deeply satisfying voyage across a remarkable landscape into...
A beguiling, multifaceted narrative larded with delightful culinary, historical, political, psychological and literary layers, set in the kingdom of Castile with a piece of cheese in the starring role.
Paterniti (Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s Brain, 2000) gracefully unravels how tradition, culture and a sense of place affect the human heart, while simultaneously wrestling with the joys and boundaries of storytelling and journalism. During a 1991 proofreading stint at a deli, following his graduation from the University of Michigan’s creative writing program, the author read a paragraph describing a “sublime” cheese from Castile. “There was something about all of it, not just the perfection of Ari’s prose,” writes Paterniti, “but the story he told—the rustic cheesemaker, the ancient family recipe, the old-fashioned process by which the cheese was born, even the idiosyncratic tin in which it was packaged—that I couldn’t stop thinking about.” Years later, the author, determined to find the storied cheesemaker and learn his tale, set off for Spain on what became a 10-year odyssey. Paterniti rapidly fell under the spell of the loquacious cheesemaker, Ambrosio, and the tiny village of Guzmán, situated in the “vast, empty highlands of the Central plateau of Spain.” At the center of the narrative is the saga of betrayal of Ambrosio and his artisanal cheese by his boyhood friend, Julian. Paterniti’s quest for the true story surrounding the creation and demise of Ambrosio’s cheese rambles in delightful directions. The author probes subjects as diverse as the first human encounter with cheese; an investigation into the origin of Pringles; geology; and Spanish “legends, farces and folktales.”
Enriched by Paterniti’s singular art of storytelling, this is a deeply satisfying voyage across a remarkable landscape into the mysteries and joys of the human heart.Pub Date: July 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-385-33700-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dial Press
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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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