by Rodney Stamps and Paige Stamps ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 13, 2018
A touchingly triumphant remembrance combined with sober analysis.
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A memoir about one man’s determination to beat the odds with alternative treatments after a grim prognosis.
In 2005, debut co-author Rodney Stamps discovered a small lump on his collarbone. Then a doctor found another one under his armpit—bigger than a golf ball—which prompted a round of medical tests. Eventually, an oncologist determined that Rodney was suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and that with immediate chemotherapy he could likely secure another five to 10 years of life—but without it, he’d likely be dead within 90 days. The news shocked both Rodney and his wife, debut co-author Paige Stamps. However, he wanted to beat the cancer, not simply postpone its victory, and he was wary of chemotherapy because two of his family members had died while undergoing such treatment. Against his doctor’s vehement orders, Rodney and Paige charted their own course, scouring the internet for unconventional alternatives. They eventually found a book describing a cure that characterized cancer as a “deficiency of the pancreatic enzymes,” and they largely attacked the disease with a rigidly restrictive diet along with a regimen of enzymes extracted from New Zealand pigs. The authors describe Rodney’s extraordinary recovery, and the emotional roller-coaster ride that they experienced in the process, with humor and poignancy. They note that the treatments weren’t as expensive as chemotherapy, but they weren’t cheap, either, and the couple struggled to pay for them while running an alarm-installation business and raising two young daughters. Along the way, they furnish a fascinatingly instructive critique of traditional medicine and of how doctors are incentivized to avoid recommending alternative cures, which, the authors say, can amount to “professional suicide.” Their account is an appropriately balanced one, however, pointing out that the world of alternative medicine is often populated by charlatans who encourage wishful aspiration instead of rigorous thought. Above all, though, this is a love story, as the authors movingly chronicle the arc of their relationship and their unwavering support of each other.
A touchingly triumphant remembrance combined with sober analysis.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9993722-1-0
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Attacking Cancer, LLC
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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