The warts-and-all memoirs of a soldier who excelled at the difficult job of being both a warrior and a healer.
Retired combat medic recounts his 20-year career, from the burning oilfields of the Gulf War to the treacherous outposts of Afghanistan.
With his stomach snarled in knots and sweat stinging his eyes, Thibeault jumped from the Army aircraft, the jolt of his open parachute giving way to a gentle descent back to earth. It was 1990, and he had survived his first jump at Airborne School. Less than a year later, the rookie medic would find himself in Operation Desert Storm, treating Syrian soldiers whose limbs had been blown off. Thibeault decided to leave the active Army to study nursing, but discovered he still yearned to “be green.” So he joined the Army National Guard. Now a seasoned combat medic and registered nurse, his skills would be tested when sent to Afghanistan in 2004. In rapid-fire style, the author describes helping save the life of an Afghan girl who swallowed insecticide. While in many ways a typical military autobiography, Thibeault’s account is noteworthy for the frank way he describes the grittiest aspects of his experience. Whether it’s the rotten stench of Kabul, prostitutes in Korea or eating monkey paw soup in Ecuador, the author’s honest depiction of what he encountered gives the text a high degree of authenticity. His candor reaches a painful climax in his own struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. “I had a rage inside me,” he writes. “It felt like fire was constantly shooting out of my hands.” The book’s timeline is difficult to follow, but aspiring healthcare professionals will glean lessons from a man equally at home in an Army field hospital or an inner city clinic. Thibeault is sometimes critical of his military experiences, but he concludes that being a medic is “the best job in the world.” Ultimately, the book is two journeys: an insider’s account of battlefield medicine, and the author’s own catharsis as he recalls the wounds he dressed for others and the trauma he faced himself.
The warts-and-all memoirs of a soldier who excelled at the difficult job of being both a warrior and a healer.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1934922651
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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