THE BRAND NEW CATASTROPHE

Name: THE BRAND NEW CATASTROPHE
Author: Mike Scalise
ISBN: 978-1-941411-33-9

by Mike Scalise ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2017

A frankly written debut memoir that captures all the fright of a medical calamity and the humor and grace necessary to...

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A devastating diagnosis throws a writer and his family into a tailspin.

The crushing catastrophe at the core of Scalise’s memoir is a burst pituitary tumor that occurred in 2002, when the author was just 24. The author enlivens his anecdote-driven chronicle with dispatches involving his mother, a worrisome matriarch who smokes and drinks despite a congenital heart ailment; his father, who emails pornography to him in a postoperative attempt to jump-start depleted testosterone levels; and his understanding, compassionate longtime girlfriend, Loren. Scalise’s tumor, seated behind his eyes, released an increased amount of pituitary hormones into his bloodstream, which can lead to a rare condition called acromegaly, causing facial and body gigantism. In a chapter titled “Q&A,” the author discusses the protocol used by physicians to assess him for symptoms, intimately detailing the numerous adverse side effects he subsequently endured throughout the months following his neurosurgery. Excessive sweating, nerve damage, sleep deprivation—all pointed to a positive diagnosis and more agony for Scalise and his family. The author’s quirky sense of humor and crisp, hopeful worldview transform this memoir from dreary to fascinating and engaging even after the grueling particulars of his Gamma Knife cranial radiation procedures are laid bare. Adding substance to the story is the medical history of how acromegaly has altered the appearances of notable public figures like Andre the Giant, Tony Robbins, and Olympic skater Scott Hamilton. Combined with his thoughtful meditations on the nature of life’s randomly occurring catastrophes, readers are further drawn into the author’s story. There is no silver lining here, but Scalise’s narrative verve and brisk prose create a winning chronicle of illness, recovery, and “courageous defiance.”

A frankly written debut memoir that captures all the fright of a medical calamity and the humor and grace necessary to survive it.

Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-941411-33-9

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Sarabande

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

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The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).

Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor will it to readers of Krakauer's narrative. (4 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)