A compelling account of a dark passage toward an uncertain future.
The ultimate double whammy—unemployment and cancer—upends a staid life in Albert’s searching memoir.
The author, a psychiatrist, was a medical director at an insurance company, a safe, comfortable career that seemed to have been preordained from childhood. Then he learned that his branch office was closing, leaving him without a job at 60; a few months later, doctors told him he had lymphoma. Albert felt betrayed by a company he had admired—and by the body that he had meticulously cared for with fastidious diets and running marathons. But he was also forced to confront himself: after a life spent picking between good and better options, he now had to face hard choices that made him wonder who he was and what he wanted. The author’s very personal yet iconic memoir opens a window onto two of modern life’s uglier ordeals. As he wrestles with guilt over the impending layoff of his staff, whom he keeps in the dark, per company orders, while busying them with meaningless projects, Albert offers a well-observed, wised-up account of downsizing in a corporate world that seems callously indifferent to the fate of its employees and to its own trumpeted standards of customer service. His battle with cancer is a similarly vivid odyssey through the horrors of high-tech medicine: the painful, humiliating tests; the labyrinthine billing statements that baffle even an insurance executive like him; the horrific side effects of chemotherapy drugs, caustic poisons that doctors hope will kill the cancer cells before they kill him. Albert tells this story with a mordant wit—“I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I want my doctor to ever say, ‘Wow!’ ”—and an engaging, psychologically rich prose style that’s by turns poignant, kvetchy and flat-out scared. The result is an acute portrait of the patient’s curse of forced helplessness—and its remedy in humor and perseverance.
A compelling account of a dark passage toward an uncertain future.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2009
ISBN: 978-1441550682
Page Count: 174
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
