An episodic, sometimes-moving remembrance.
A memoir of vignettes about clothing and accessories.
Lesser (Who’s Going to Watch My Kids?, 2015, etc.) begins her story in 1987, when she was entering eighth grade. Her parents decided to move her from a small Quaker school to a prep school near Princeton University, and Lesser struggled hard to fit in. She begged her mother to buy her the kind of signet ring the popular prep school kids had, and her mother finally relented. The ring becomes the first of a series of talismans that ground the author’s life experiences; they also form the structure of this memoir, in which each chapter is dedicated to a specific item. Later chapters center on a summer camp necklace, a handbag, indoor scarves, yoga bracelets, and other objects. Along the way, each article takes on symbolic significance; for example, an Elsa Peretti gold-heart necklace packaged in a Tiffany box, which Lesser’s parents gave to her on her 16th birthday, came to represent her search for love in high school and college, and a pair of funky Chan Luu earrings represented the true love that blossomed with her husband. At another point, a Kate Spade bag is shown be emotionally entangled with her marketing career in New York City. Some readers may be put off by the privileged perspective of this account, which is repeatedly demarcated by shopping trips to luxury retailers. Overall, the memoir may resonate most with readers who are fans of social media accounts that focus on lifestyle and motherhood. Lesser writes with a sense of humor and a strong, clear voice that brings to mind aspirational chick-lit novels. Her reflections on coping with the death of a parent are particularly poignant, as she uses a scarf, given to her by her dying mother, to represent her parent’s wish for her to be happy.
An episodic, sometimes-moving remembrance.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63152-622-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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