A sharp and affecting piece of perspective-setting.
Longtime journalist and former television producer Cohen recounts with aplomb and high character his years battling chronic illness.
This couldn’t have been easy to write. The author is reticent by nature, so laying bare the impact of multiple sclerosis and cancer—his malfunctioning limbs, numb appendages, bad gut, loss of vision, his anger, his fragile grip on life—is an act of emotional health that, though salubrious, clashes with some of his basic instincts. Multiple sclerosis has no treatment, no certain outcome, no definitive cause, and no cure; it is a process, a grim pileup on the central nervous system. Cohen tested limits, postponed consequences, and practiced denial, then started learning the art of candor: to whom and when to be honest about his illness. After stints in Gdansk and Beirut, this television producer on a rip admitted that his death-defying behavior was absurd, that he was not right and fit as rain. Nonetheless, he wanted (along with other things, like walking upright and seeing straight) a woman in his life and a family. He found Meredith Vieira, also in the TV business, whose desire to be a hands-on mother made her a cause célèbre among some in the 60 Minutes studio. And Cohen was busy elsewhere, with their children, learning that “those who battle with illness are blind to the fact that even in our pain, we give to our loved ones, even as we receive.” As a parent, he realized, “a temporary ileostomy was the least of my worries. . . . I laughed ruefully, bitterly, at the situation and at myself.” Via a number of sources, Cohen ultimately learns that coping is “just a quiet task aimed at emotional well-being, if not survival,” and that there will likely be many jarring moments ahead for everyone. He lays out these lessons in unflappable prose, freely acknowledging that his behavior is not always so even-tempered.
A sharp and affecting piece of perspective-setting.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-001409-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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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