Through text that reads like dynamic blog material and flows with the hyperactive flare of an anxious father of three, the...
A neurotic American father of three relocates his family to Hong Kong for one year.
Hanstedt (General Education Essentials: A Guide for College Faculty, 2012), an English professor and editor of the Roanoke Review, is no stranger to international travel, having visited 30 countries on four continents. But living in Asia on a Fulbright exchange program for 12 months became a challenge of epic proportions for him, his wife, Ellen, and their three kids, 9-year-old Will, 6-year-old Lucy and 3-year-old Jamie, whose bright, distinctive personalities are on full display. Though their first few days abroad were marred with the death of Ellen’s father, the family trudged on with wide-eyed excitement at the cross-cultural opportunity unfolding before them. From navigating the subway system to procuring palatable food for picky kids in Kowloon restaurants, the culture clash began immediately. The author excitedly dictates stories of rocky junk rides, pedestrian dangers and space issues inside their temporary home, situated 20 minutes from China’s border, and he balances the inconveniences with pages of familial history and beautifully described scenery. When Will got bullied, Hanstedt drew on his own painful moments of tortured life at school; in the final pages, he tenderly reflects on Jamie’s incremental growth while in China from a baby to a vibrant toddler.
Through text that reads like dynamic blog material and flows with the hyperactive flare of an anxious father of three, the narrative moves along seamlessly with enthusiasm, parental trepidation and a healthy dose of sardonic humor.Pub Date: July 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4405-4073-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Adams Media
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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