A great-hearted book of tenderness and brutality.
The boldly intimate memoir of an English Gypsy's struggle to define himself and his sexuality outside the bounds of traditional Romany culture.
Walsh (Gypsy Boy, 2012) grew up in the rough-and-tumble world of Gypsies, where men "oozed testosterone and masculinity" and "drank, argued over women and produced sons." From the time he was a young boy, though, he knew he was different. His father wanted to transform him into a fighter worthy of the family name. However, "thrashing the stuffing" out of boys "just for the sake of some misguided sense of honour” made no sense at all. Tired of both his father's inability to accept him for what he was and of the secret sexual abuse he endured from his father's brother, Walsh ran away from home at 15. He went to live with his lover Caleb, who protected him from the Gypsy thugs his father hired to track them down. Walsh fled to Leeds and then Manchester, struggling to build a life among the "Gorgias." His relationship with Caleb did not survive, but other friends he made in the gay community helped him find his way. Against all odds, Walsh earned a college degree and also gained a coveted place at the Guildhall School of Drama in London. But he missed his family and worried for the safety of his youngest brother, who he feared would be molested by his unscrupulous uncle. Eventually, he exposed his father's brother for the predator he was. Neither Walsh's father nor his fighter-brother, however, could ever fully accept that homosexuality was part of their macho family heritage. Sadly aware that he would never be able to "go back to the family home again," Walsh nevertheless continued to love them from the new home he had made for himself outside the Gypsy community.
A great-hearted book of tenderness and brutality.Pub Date: March 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-02187-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
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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