The prolific master of Broadway fun hops over the footlights to recall much—but not all—of his personal history. This is an intelligent and diverting memoir, artfully constructed. The work of crafting Simon's first dozen or so plays, from Come Blow Your Horn and Little Me to The Sunshine Boys and The Good Doctor, is presented in the order of their creation. The periods of Simon's life that they recall do not fall so neatly in order, and yet the memories that eddy around the landmarks of the plays are somehow all the more effective without strict chronology. There is a funny set piece on young Neil's sexual initiation. His native wit is as abundant as ever, but he can easily write a simple declarative sentence without punctuating it with a gag. There are poignant glimpses of a childhood in a strangely inoperative family, of a sometimes loving, always complex relationship with gagwriter brother Danny. Simon hasn't much use for agents or their advice on business deals. (Following such advice, he ``never saw a dime, a nickel, or a penny'' from the TV series of The Odd Couple.) There are third-act problems, out-of-town rewrites, and missing stars. Though there are no lessons on how to be funny, the book is full of clues on the craft of playwriting. There are deft character sketches, but, by far, the most touching parts of Simon's story deal with his love for wife Joan. With her early passing some two decades ago Simon brings down the curtain. Not covered: military escapades, much of life as a TV gag writer, and later uxorial adventures. There are more plays, of course, so let's have the next installment soon, Mr. Simon. Neil Simon delivers, from the heart, a fine portrait of the artist. (First printing of 100,000; first serial to Reader's Digest; author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-684-82672-0
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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
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