An arresting and provocative narrative.
A memoir from a giant of the 1970s through 1990s New York City club scene.
Pilloried in the press and portrayed by U.S. prosecutors as a diabolical drug lord, Gatien argues that he was just a hardworking entrepreneur from the backwoods of Canada who happened to fall prey to an unscrupulous big-city careerist named Rudolph Giuliani. At one time in the 1990s, Gatien—the poor kid from Cornwall, Ontario, who began his career by selling blue jeans—owned and operated four of the hottest dance clubs in NYC history: Club USA, Palladium, the Tunnel, and Limelight. The author paints a picture of a simple guy with big dreams who was always vulnerable to outside speculation and conjecture. Before delving into the sordid goings-on that led to his eventual downfall—illicit drug use and grisly club deaths—Gatien employs crisp, vivid prose to recount a warm tale of a local boy making good on the other side of the border. Readers will learn that the impetus behind his success in the nightclub business originated with the heartwarming holiday gatherings that the author lovingly recounts from his disadvantaged childhood. According to Gatien, he is guilty of both being an inattentive father who often confused material support for affection and, at one point, becoming a drug abuser. However, he insists that he never operated the “drug supermarkets” he was accused of running. “A ridiculous concept,” he writes after recounting a police raid on the Limelight. “Especially when the raid had actually turned up only a paltry amount of weed. But police, prosecutors, and the media fastened upon the term, as though Limelight operated some sort of illicit Duane Reade….A Big Lie was born and took on a life of its own. ‘Drug supermarket’ became a convenient catchphrase, a two-word package tied up in a neat bow and used to sway public opinion.” Sixteen years after his deportation back to Canada, Gatien tells his side of the story.
An arresting and provocative narrative.Pub Date: April 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1531-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Little A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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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