Moving statement of faith from reformed criminal.
Heartbreaking inspirational memoir of one young man’s battle to overcome poverty and crime.
Born out of wedlock in 1949, Isley spent his youth steeped in poverty, picking cotton alongside his grandparents, who raised him and 13 other children. Growing up parentless as an African-American boy in rural North Carolina, Isley faced hardship at every turn. He was drawn into crime at an early age, falling in with a bad crowd and their lifestyle of petty thievery. Soon enough, however, Isley became a major gambler and the severity of his crimes worsened: in the tenth grade, he stabbed a boy and was nearly sent to prison. By the time he turned 20, Isley was an accomplished loan shark living in Philadelphia, managing an illegal gambling ring and dabbling in drugs. At 23, he was the center of an up-and-coming crime syndicate. It was a lifestyle that could not last. After former friendships soured and a hit man was hired to kill him, Isley left his life of crime and started fresh with his young wife Carmen. They moved into a new neighborhood, opened a small corner store and managed to keep afloat in the face of rigorous obstacles. The couple’s new home was serendipitously located next door to a Catholic church, and Isley turned to his neighboring congregation for spiritual guidance. The values formerly instilled by his deeply religious grandparents were renewed and the family soon became deeply involved with the church. Several years later, Isley was ordained as a Roman Catholic deacon. The author’s style is rough-hewn, but this only accentuates the scrapes and stumbles of his life. Isley mainly lets his tale tell its own moral, forgoing any sermonizing, but he makes clear throughout the text that good parents, strong friendships and true love can make all the difference.
Moving statement of faith from reformed criminal.Pub Date: July 5, 2007
ISBN: 978-1425764692
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
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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