A harrowing, ultimately inspiring cancer journal.
Drawing from his blog posts, a father recounts the life-changing battle waged against his young son’s leukemia.
In 2009, Simkins’ middle son, Brennan, had just turned 7 when he was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia that required a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy. Sadly, while it at first seemed that the cancer was in remission after Brennan underwent treatment in a hospital near the family’s Georgia home, the cancer crept back. Medical professionals told Simkins and his wife that further treatment would be risky, and they should prepare for their child’s death. Instead, the family relocated to St. Jude’s Hospital in Memphis, where Brennan ended up receiving a record four stem cell transplants. Simkins began to blog soon after Brennan’s diagnosis; this memoir is an adaptation of those chronologically dated entries. He details his son’s fight against cancer and an array of distressing setbacks, which included the emergence of a brain cyst and Brennan being put into a medical coma, as well as how the Band of Brothers story became a resonating metaphor for the family. Simkins also details relationships forged with pediatric cancer patients, their parents, doctors, and most significantly, his own fluctuating moods of faith and despair. By 2012, the family was finally back at home, with Brennan now stable in fourth remission, with Simkins realizing the experience had also unleashed “the capacity to awaken, to seek, and truly experience life.” Simkins, who spent time as a newspaper reporter and now runs an advertising firm, offers an intensely honest account of the horrors and hope that face a parent whose child has cancer. His narrative is a testament to the importance of seeking out additional medical opinions while harnessing the power of family and prayer. Simkins admits in his foreword that his account may be too downbeat and overly detailed, but his memoir is nevertheless an absorbing, suspenseful read, complete with a heartbreaking dramatic crescendo as Brennan recovers but others do not.
A harrowing, ultimately inspiring cancer journal.Pub Date: March 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-63299-023-5
Page Count: 302
Publisher: River Grove Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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