A revealing—and troubling—portrait of a much-revered figure.
The story of a legendary Marine Corps commander who championed innovative tactics in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
In this admiring biography, novelist and biographer Coram (American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day, 2007, etc.) traces the life of Lt. Gen. Victor Krulak (1913–2008), who was born the spoiled only child of a Denver watchmaker and grew up to become “a man of dazzling intellect and extraordinary vision” and “the most important officer” in Marine Corps history. Against the broader story of the modern U.S. Marines, the author shows how Krulak’s tremendous drive and friendships with top officers fueled his rapid rise through the ranks; he eventually commanded all Marine Corps forces in the Pacific. He helped create the Higgins boat (its square bow became a retractable ramp), which famously carried troops onto the invasion beaches of Normandy and the Pacific in World War II; pioneered the use of helicopters in battle during the Korean War; and developed techniques for counterinsurgency warfare in Vietnam. He also successfully fought attempts to dissolve the Corps. But Krulak’s ceaseless quest for recognition was “driven by a dark wind.” The short, flinty officer hid secrets and told lies about himself. He never revealed that his parents were Russian Jews. Nor did he tell anyone—not even his wife and three sons—that he had been married, however briefly, at 16, a fact that would have prevented his admission to the Naval Academy. He claimed falsely that he was raised as an Episcopalian, that his father was a scientist and his great-grandfather had served in the Confederate army. Saddled with these and other lies, Krulak maintained an “icy self-control” to protect his inner self and the reality that “were it not for the Marine Corps, he would be an obscure little Jewish boy working in the family jewelry business in Denver.” Coram suggests that Krulak’s exemplary devotion to military duty and rectitude outweighs his duplicity. Krulak was denied the post of Marine Corps commandant after criticizing President Johnson’s conduct of the Vietnam War.
A revealing—and troubling—portrait of a much-revered figure.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-316-75846-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2010
Skilled and graceful exploration of the soul of an astonishing human being.
Full-immersion journalist Kidder (Home Town, 1999, etc.) tries valiantly to keep up with a front-line, muddy-and-bloody general in the war against infectious disease in Haiti and elsewhere.
The author occasionally confesses to weariness in this gripping account—and why not? Paul Farmer, who has an M.D. and a Ph.D. from Harvard, appears to be almost preternaturally intelligent, productive, energetic, and devoted to his causes. So trotting alongside him up Haitian hills, through international airports and Siberian prisons and Cuban clinics, may be beyond the capacity of a mere mortal. Kidder begins with a swift account of his first meeting with Farmer in Haiti while working on a story about American soldiers, then describes his initial visit to the doctor’s clinic, where the journalist felt he’d “encountered a miracle.” Employing guile, grit, grins, and gifts from generous donors (especially Boston contractor Tom White), Farmer has created an oasis in Haiti where TB and AIDS meet their Waterloos. The doctor has an astonishing rapport with his patients and often travels by foot for hours over difficult terrain to treat them in their dwellings (“houses” would be far too grand a word). Kidder pauses to fill in Farmer’s amazing biography: his childhood in an eccentric family sounds like something from The Mosquito Coast; a love affair with Roald Dahl’s daughter ended amicably; his marriage to a Haitian anthropologist produced a daughter whom he sees infrequently thanks to his frenetic schedule. While studying at Duke and Harvard, Kidder writes, Farmer became obsessed with public health issues; even before he’d finished his degrees he was spending much of his time in Haiti establishing the clinic that would give him both immense personal satisfaction and unsurpassed credibility in the medical worlds he hopes to influence.
Skilled and graceful exploration of the soul of an astonishing human being.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-50616-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
A courageous and thought-provoking memoir.
A bestselling memoirist’s account of coping with an unexpected midlife evolution in sexual identity.
When Wizenberg, who runs the popular Orangette blog, received a jury duty summons, she never thought that it would lead to divorce. In court, her eyes were immediately drawn to a female defense attorney dressed in a men’s suit. Her thoughts lingered on the attractive stranger after each day’s proceedings. But guilt at being “a woman wearing a wedding ring” made the author feel increasingly guilty for the obsession that seized her. Her husband, Brandon, a successful Seattle restaurateur, and their daughter were the “stars” that guided her path; the books she had written revolved like planets around the sun of their relationship and the restaurants they had founded together. However, in the weeks that followed, Wizenberg shocked herself by telling her husband about the attraction and suggesting that they open their marriage to polyamorous experimentation. Reading the work of writers like Adrienne Rich who had discovered their lesbianism later in life, Wizenberg engaged in deep, sometimes-painful self-interrogation. The author remembered the story of a married uncle, a man she resembled, who came out as gay and then later died of AIDS as well as a brief lesbian flirtation in late adolescence where “nothing happened.” Eventually, Wizenberg began dating the lawyer and fell in love with her. Wizenberg then began the painful process of separating herself from Brandon and, later, from their restaurant businesses that she had quietly seen as impediments to her writing. Feeling unfulfilled by Nora, a self-professed “stone top” who preferred to give pleasure rather than receive it, Wizenberg began to date a nonbinary person named Ash. Through that relationship, she came to embrace both gender and sexual fluidity. Interwoven throughout with research insights into the complexity of female sexual identity, Wizenberg’s book not only offers a glimpse into the shifting nature of selfhood; it also celebrates one woman’s hard-won acceptance of her own sexual difference.
A courageous and thought-provoking memoir.Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4299-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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