An intriguing memoir that presents an unusual and necessary perspective on sperm donation.
A story of one man’s discovery of his donor-conceived origin, put into historical context.
Boni, the author of All Hands on Deck (2015) and retired after a long career in the tech industry,offers readers a memoir combined with a short account of artificial insemination’s long history. First and foremost, however, it’s a book about biology and identity. It begins with the author’s finding out at age 49 that his deceased father, whom he loved dearly, was not, in fact, his biological parent. Following this revelation, Boni spent the next 20-plus years working through his mother’s dissembling about his beginnings and, with the help of the Boston Public Library and Harvard Medical School Library, unraveling a mystery. Along the way, he describes the difference that the advent of the internet made in his research and discusses the promises and limitations of services such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com. In the end, Boni learns the identities of his biological father and other relations. In addition, the book offers a thoughtful and well-researched look at sperm donation. For much of its history, the author notes, the practice was likened to adultery and involved a lot of secrecy as a result. The author provides readers with a clear picture of that history, which goes back surprisingly far; however, his mention of how it brought Queen Isabella to the throne glosses over her very mixed legacy. Some of the best parts of the book bring out unexpected connections between the historical and the personal; for example, it details the role of John Rock, a fertility specialist who was behind the creation of the birth control pill, in helping couples who wanted biological children and also reveals that he was Boni’s parents’ fertility doctor. At the end, the author includes an essay about his research and offers additional historical observations as well as a template for a donor-conceived person’s bill of rights.
An intriguing memoir that presents an unusual and necessary perspective on sperm donation.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1626349070
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A harrowing, haunting reflection on the routine slaughter wrought by guns.
The acclaimed novelist lays out how America became a nation terrorized by personal weaponry.
In this brief but remarkably moving work, Auster blends personal and historical commentary, anecdotal and statistical evidence, sober analysis, and passionate appeals for reform, sketching the origins and present reality of American gun violence. Early in the book, he reveals a disturbing secret: When his father was 6 years old, his grandmother deliberately shot and killed his grandfather in an act attributed to temporary insanity. Auster suggests that this tragedy and its ramifying trauma might be viewed as broadly and uncannily representative of modern American life, where such violence has been normalized by its frequency. The author remains both sensible and compelling in his commentary as he notes the divisiveness of efforts at gun control, and he skillfully summarizes the reasoning and emotional commitments of both pro- and anti-gun activists. His outline of the nation’s historical relationship with guns is astute and memorable, and he persuasively assesses the sociopolitical roots of the “right to bear arms,” the ideological impacts of long-term conflicts with Native Americans and the enslavement of African Americans, and the strange oscillations of outrage and complacency that define contemporary responses to mass shootings. Though Auster’s arguments will be familiar to anyone who has followed gun control debates closely, the author’s overview is exceptional in its clarity and arresting in its sense of urgency. The book includes a series of photographs by Ostrander, each of them absent of human figures or any overt suggestion of traumatic events—caption: “Safeway supermarket parking lot. Tucson, Arizona. January 8, 2011. 6 people killed; 15 injured (13 by gunfire).” The photos document the sites of mass shootings and provoke, like the text, disquieting confrontations with the nation’s transformation of all private and public settings into potential sites of violence.
A harrowing, haunting reflection on the routine slaughter wrought by guns.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780802160454
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Nov. 6, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Intelligent reading filled with candor and sympathy.
An Irish-born, New York–based comedian gets serious about her life experiences in early-21st-century America.
Higgins begins her latest essay collection by reflecting on pandemic loneliness and hoping “that it not impart any damn lessons. I can’t stand when horrible and senseless things happen and people insist on finding some neat takeaway to make sense of it all.” This darkly humorous observation sets the tone for the difficult topics she discusses throughout the book, such as her battle with “great waves of anxiety and depression.” The author couches discussions of mental health in a story of getting so high on THC–laced candy that she feared she had lost her mind. As frightening as the misadventure was, it made Higgins realize that in the U.S., she had found the freedom, unavailable to her in Ireland, to treat depression as “just a fact of life.” Being an immigrant granted other perks, as well, like the ability to see the racial subjugation and White supremacy issues underlying the controversy surrounding Confederate statues. She also demonstrates profound empathy for undocumented Mexican immigrants who have experienced the “increasingly draconian treatment” of U.S. border patrol agents. Reflecting on her own easy ability to cross borders and seek American citizenship as a White, middle-class European woman of ambition, she writes, “how free am I when others aren’t free at all?” While Higgins understands how much she has benefited from being in the U.S., she is also critical of the American hypercapitalism that not only led to the rise of Donald Trump, but continues to "deplete everything around me” and push the planet into a devastating climate crisis. The author’s fans may find the humor in this book more subdued than in her past work, but for those willing to venture into the realms of cultural critique, her essays are both timely and rewarding.
Intelligent reading filled with candor and sympathy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-14-313586-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
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