The expanding country bookshelf has another welcome addition.
A solid, incisive biography of the last singer universally acknowledged as the greatest in country music.
It’s to Kienzle’s (Southwest Shuffle: Pioneers of Honky Tonk, Western Swing, and Country Jazz, 2003, etc.) credit that he neither downplays his subject’s notorious personal life nor allows it to overshadow the soulful majesty of his music. A veteran country-music journalist and historian, the author maintains that “Jones’s life and music are inseparable” and that the demons he battled—alcohol, cocaine, marital discord—were inextricable from the depths of emotion he plumbed through his unique timbre and phrasing. From Johnny Cash to Buck Owens, other masters of country music acknowledged that Jones had no peer as a country singer among the generations that followed Hank Williams, whom Jones initially did his best to imitate. Said Pappy Daily, who managed and nominally produced Jones through his early ascent, “George, you’ve sung like Roy Acuff, Lefty Frizzell, Hank Williams, and Bill Monroe. Can you sing like George Jones?” Once he developed his signature style—twisting a single syllable into three or four while retaining his raw, pure country essence—everyone in Nashville celebrated his artistry as the gold standard. Yet they also assumed that he would follow his idol Williams into an early grave and that loving this sincere and honest man meant having to forgive what a mean drunk and undependable performer he was. Even when he showed up, “No Show Jones” might not be able to stand up. His marriage to Tammy Wynette was pretty much a train wreck, though it elevated the profiles of both. In chronicling the rise, fall, and ultimate salvation of Jones, Kienzle relies more on secondary sources and archival material than on original reporting. With all the credit he gives Nancy Sepulvado Jones for saving her husband’s life as well as his career, it’s a shame the author never interviewed her. But as a straightforward, chronological celebration of the life of an American master, the biography gives Jones his due.
The expanding country bookshelf has another welcome addition.Pub Date: March 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-230991-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
