by Robert D. Lamson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 3, 2015
An affecting account of one man’s irrepressible will to survive and succeed.
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The fictionalization of a memoir that recounts an Armenian’s attempt to flee Turkey at the dawn of World War I.
Author Lamson (Beyond Guns and Butter, 1991) takes a remembrance written by his great uncle Souren Barkev Tashjian and expands it into a fuller, more novelistic account. This reconstructed version, bookended by Lamson’s own commentary, uses considerable “literary license,” transforming a skeletal account into something rich and cinematic. Unlike the original manuscript, which begins when Souren is 12, Lamson’s reworking commences before Souren was even born, with a prophecy that his life will be besieged with danger. That foretelling turns out to be spot-on; Souren is born into a Turkey in the midst of chaos. On the cusp of World War I, and hellbent on purging itself of its minority elements, Turkey has become an inhospitable place for Christian Armenians. Souren watches as his five siblings flee to the U.S. as he stays behind too long to safely exit and is called to register in the Turkish army or face dire consequences. In what follows, he exhibits almost superhuman resourcefulness and courage. Consistently trapped in impossible situations, he keeps divining creative ways to escape. His mother interprets one of his anxious dreams, anticipating his future daring: “You have experienced a premonition, as Armenians have been living alongside such a monster, now awakening. We will soon experience the full force of its ferocious nature, and for certain you are at great risk. But you, Souren, you are both smart and strategic. I believe this dream foretells that you will find a way to outsmart the monster and survive.” The journey that ensues is remarkable, even more so because it’s true and serves as a powerful reminder of the suffering Armenians went through as a result of Turkey’s modern transformation.
An affecting account of one man’s irrepressible will to survive and succeed.Pub Date: March 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1503093201
Page Count: 348
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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SEEN & HEARD
by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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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
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