An amusing, meaningful account that demonstrates from the male perspective how to face down obesity, largely through...
A memoir traces a personal journey through the ups and downs of weight loss.
This work by Peterson (Managing When No One Wants to Work, 2014) candidly tells the story of how a 350-pound man found the courage and determination to lose weight and repair his self-image. Written as a first-person narrative, the book is a confessional in which the author recounts numerous embarrassing moments caused by his obesity. Thankfully, Peterson not only weaves an effective tale; he also displays an endearing sense of humor and the ability to laugh at his own foibles. Still, there is a vulnerability to the author that is revealed in the honest assessment of his struggles with various diets, making the tale all the more poignant. While this could have been just another lighthearted reminiscence, the volume’s enduring emotional strength is in the “50 Rules” of dieting based on Peterson’s own trials. Here, the author essentially delivers a set of inspirational and practical steps to permanent weight loss, urging the reader to “incorporate just one Rule, or all 50 into your life.” Each one includes an example from the author’s own experience as well as strong encouragement. In “Begin with the End” (Rule 1), for example, Peterson writes: “I had to visualize my future self, being as specific as possible about how I wanted to look, and feel and act, and what I wanted to do and where I wanted to live.” He goes on to advise: “Be the type of person who decides to do more than just dream big. The type of person who takes the time to visualize the future; instead of the type that just takes it as it comes.” This me-and-you conversational style develops an intimate connection between Peterson and the reader with a weight problem, making for powerful prose. While the rules themselves are somewhat random rather than shaping any kind of formal plan, they should be stirring and helpful to anyone grappling with weight loss.
An amusing, meaningful account that demonstrates from the male perspective how to face down obesity, largely through self-awareness and individual efforts rather than a specific diet.Pub Date: April 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9989268-0-3
Page Count: 156
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The memoir of George Dawson, who learned to read when he was 98, places his life in the context of the entire 20th century in this inspiring, yet ultimately blighted, biography. Dawson begins his story with an emotional bang: his account of witnessing the lynching of a young African-American man falsely accused of rape. America’s racial caste system and his illiteracy emerge as the two biggest obstacles in Dawson’s life, but a full view of the man overcoming the obstacles remains oddly hidden. Travels to Ohio, Canada, and Mexico reveal little beyond Dawson’s restlessness, since nothing much happens to him during these wanderings. Similarly, the diverse activities he finds himself engaging in—bootlegging in St. Louis, breaking horses, attending cockfights—never really advance the reader’s understanding of the man. He calls himself a “ladies’ man” and hints at a score of exciting stories, but then describes only his decorous marriage. Despite the personal nature of this memoir, Dawson remains a strangely aloof figure, never quite inviting the reader to enter his world. In contrast to Dawson’s diffidence, however, Glaubman’s overbearing presence, as he repeatedly parades himself out to converse with Dawson, stifles any momentum the memoir might develop. Almost every chapter begins with Glaubman presenting Dawson with a newspaper clipping or historical fact and asking him to comment on it, despite the fact that Dawson often does not remember or never knew about the event in question. Exasperated readers may wonder whether Dawson’s life and his accomplishments, his passion for learning despite daunting obstacles, is the tale at hand, or whether the real issue is his recollections of Archduke Ferdinand. Dawson’s achievements are impressive and potentially exalting, but the gee-whiz nature of the tale degrades it to the status of yet another bowl of chicken soup for the soul, with a narrative frame as clunky as an old bone.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50396-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
That sense of joy infuses these gentle essays. “Old age sits in a chair,” writes Hall, “writing a little and diminishing.”...
The writing life at age 85.
In this collection of 14 autobiographical essays, former U.S. Poet Laureate Hall (Christmas at Eagle Pond, 2012, etc.) reflects on aging, death, the craft of writing and his beloved landscape of New Hampshire. Debilitated by health problems that have affected his balance and ability to walk, the author sees his life physically compromised, and “the days have narrowed as they must. I live on one floor eating frozen dinners.” He waits for the mail; a physical therapist visits twice a week; and an assistant patiently attends to typing, computer searches and money matters. “In the past I was often advised to live in the moment,” he recalls. “Now what else can I do? Days are the same, generic and speedy….” Happily, he is still able to write, although not poetry. “As I grew older,” he writes, “poetry abandoned me….For a male poet, imagination and tongue-sweetness require a blast of hormones.” Writing in longhand, Hall revels in revising, a process that can entail more than 80 drafts. “Because of multiple drafts I have been accused of self-discipline. Really I am self-indulgent, I cherish revising so much.” These essays circle back on a few memories: the illness and death of his wife, the poet Jane Kenyon, which sent him into the depths of grief; childhood recollections of his visits to his grandparents’ New Hampshire farm, where he helped his grandfather with haying; grateful portraits of the four women who tend to him: his physical therapist, assistant, housekeeper and companion; and giving up tenure “for forty joyous years of freelance writing.”
That sense of joy infuses these gentle essays. “Old age sits in a chair,” writes Hall, “writing a little and diminishing.” For the author, writing has been, and continues to be, his passionate revenge against diminishing.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-0544287044
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2014
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