If the rest of this book had the panache of its closing pages, Rowan might almost have atoned for his years of deceit.
An affectedly “literary” confession and apology from a notorious plagiarizer.
As Q.R. Markham, Rowan made a splash in the fall of 2011 with the publication of his spy novel Assassin of Secrets, the first of a proposed series. He made a bigger splash when the publisher withdrew the book after its first weekend of sales upon finding it had been constructed almost entirely of bits and pieces from a dozen or more already published spy novels by the likes of John Gardner and Robert Ludlum, to name only the best known. Rowan was instantly pilloried, particularly on the Internet, where he was showered with poisonous barbs and death threats. Online sleuths quickly uncovered more plagiarism in his past, including a short story partly lifted from Graham Greene that appeared under Rowan’s name in Partisan Review in 2002. Why did he do it? Unsurprisingly, Rowan blames an overwhelming desire for fame, fortune and the respect of friends and family combined with lack of confidence in his own abilities to acquire all the above. “I did at one point have a voice,” Rowan laments, suggesting that his thievery was a way to borrow others’ voices when his went missing. Trying to retrieve it here, he often sounds like a self-conscious imitation of David Foster Wallace, with dashes of Kurt Vonnegut, Martin Amis and James Joyce thrown in willy-nilly. A former girlfriend summed up nicely the problem with Rowan’s style, calling it “show-offy and geared to impress by overwhelming the reader.” She suggested he aim for “writing that tries to communicate rather than obscure.” The author finally pulls that off in the final chapter, a straightforward account of the unfolding of the Assassin affair that, like the best crime writing, is almost unbearably suspenseful.
If the rest of this book had the panache of its closing pages, Rowan might almost have atoned for his years of deceit.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-891241-58-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: YETI/Verse Chorus
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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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