A fast-paced account quite likely to engender strong reactions among readers concerned with the U.S. military’s roles in...
A war memoir from a highly decorated Navy SEAL.
The news flash from this book by retired SEAL O’Neill is that he fired the bullets that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. However, the shooting does not occur until more than 300 pages in; the narrative consists of much more than the sensational account of what happened on the top-secret mission to bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Some passages are redacted due to review of the manuscript by U.S. Department of Defense Prepublication and Security Review personnel. In addition, O’Neill disguises the identities of more than a dozen individuals. As a result, judging the accuracy of the sensitive, war-related information presents difficulties, especially in light of previously published information about the bin Laden mission. (The author does not mention the controversial book No Easy Day by fellow SEAL Matt Bissonnette, who wrote using the pen name Mark Owen.) Whatever controversy might ensue, most of the memoir is enlightening about military special forces, especially the SEAL component. Born in 1976 and reared in Butte, Montana, O’Neill enlisted in the Navy in 1995 with the goal of becoming a SEAL. He understood the rigorous training, and he knew the washout rate was high, but he persisted, overcoming months of physical and mental rigor. The author had his first deployment in 1998 and went on to participate in top-secret assignments in Afghanistan and Iraq in addition to battling Somali pirates. Zealously patriotic, O’Neill seems to have never seriously questioned the motivations or consequences of his missions. During his time as a SEAL, O’Neill married and became a father, and he discusses the havoc caused by his military assignments regarding his family life.
A fast-paced account quite likely to engender strong reactions among readers concerned with the U.S. military’s roles in foreign conflicts.Pub Date: April 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-4503-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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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