Slapdash and inessential.
The actor best known for his portrayal of B.J. Hunnicutt on M*A*S*H demonstrates that book tours are every bit as tedious as imagined.
In May 2008, Farrell (Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist, 2007) rented a Prius (nicknamed “Mule”) and looped across the United States on a 25-city book tour. Reading about his cross-country trip is like thumbing through a stranger’s travel diary—it’s chock full of meandering, superficial observations that ultimately don’t add up to much. Even though each event was co-sponsored by individuals or groups dedicated to social justice, Farrell rarely reflects on the progressive nature of his tour—how it was conceived, what he hoped to accomplish, how it could serve as a model for other authors. Rather than weaving his involvement with these organizations into the narrative, the author includes dry summaries of their missions in boxed-off spaces. Moreover, he often undercuts his stance as an activist with his condescending tone. He sneers at right-wing radio hosts and their audiences (“I truly worry about the people who listen to this crap all the time”) and resorts to ad hominem attacks against former President Bush, referring to him as “President Stupid” and a “the pathetic, smirking narcissist who occupies our White House.” The larger problem, however, is that Farrell too often glosses over the unique aspects of his tour. In New Orleans, he met with Sister Helen Prejean, a renowned opponent of the death penalty, and instead of offering vivid scenes or telling anecdotes, he simply notes that they had a “great dinner and wonderful conversation.” In contrast, Farrell dedicates nearly an entire chapter to getting an oil change at a Firestone dealer in New York City. Despite his forced attempts at whimsy—largely through unconvincing conversations with Mule—what his chronicles inadvertently portray is the mundane, repetitive nature of the modern book tour, where authors skip from city to city with little time to explore individual communities or interact with readers.
Slapdash and inessential.Pub Date: May 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-933354-75-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Akashic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2009
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
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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