A hagiographic authorized bio of New Jersey's governor, by her personal friend. There can be little pretense of objectivity in a political biography , like this one (the second this year after Sandy McClure's Christy Whitman for the People), which is introduced by the subject: In her rather self-satisfied introduction, Whitman tells about the values of honesty and leadership learned in her wealthy, politically oriented Republican upbringing in rural New Jersey. The author traces Whitman's lineage back to her 17th- century New Jersey forebears, particularly profiling her public- spirited grandfather, John Todd. Then Beard relates more than one is likely to want to know about Whitman's sometimes idyllic, sometimes turbulent childhood on her family's farm; one is even treated to descriptions of home movies featuring Whitman, stories of her foxhunting, and detailed analyses of the dynamics of her parents' relationships. Beard shows the politically charged atmosphere in which Whitman grew up: Her parents, both prominent Republicans, were Eisenhower supporters, although her father was a close friend of Adlai Stevensons. Whitman was early exposed to the excitement of Republican conventions and the trauma of a divided party in 1964, when Goldwater's radical conservatism alienated establishment Republicans like Whitman's father. Although politically aware and active before her 1974 marriage to John Whitman, afterward she devoted herself primarily to her family until her 1982 election to the Somerset County Board of Freeholders. After success there and on the Board of Public Utilities, she ran against and almost beat the highly popular incumbent senator, Bill Bradley, and in 1993, running largely on a platform of tax reform, went on to beat Jim Florio for governor. One would be naive to expect a hard-hitting critique of Whitman or her policies from this adulatory tract. Still, an appealing human portrait emerges of one of the nation's most eminent governors.
Pub Date: July 17, 1996
ISBN: 0-06-018361-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1996
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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