A hokey but inspiring blend of personal narrative and scientific exploration.
Mallett (Theoretical Physics/Univ. of Connecticut) chronicles his quest to build a time machine, sparked by grief over his father’s premature death, in 1955.
The author was only ten, the oldest of four children in a happy, aspiring African-American family, when his father died of a heart attack at age 33. Two years later, that tragedy took on a different meaning for young Ronald when he read Classics Illustrated No. 133, a comic-book version of H.G. Wells’s science-fiction classic, The Time Machine. Mallett became determined to build his own time machine so that he could return to the days before May 22, 1955, and save his father. He pursued this quest despite bouts of depression that almost forced him to drop out of school. Early encounters with racism, especially while stationed in the South during his Air Force service, made him focus more intently on acquiring advanced math and computer skills. Back in the civilian world, he entered Penn State, majoring in physics. Mallett kept his long-time goal a close secret, knowing that it would be an impediment to any serious scientific career. But careful study of Einstein’s relativity theory convinced him that his dream was actually possible. The author interweaves the story of his scientific career with the drive to make his sci-fi dream of time travel come true. Eventually, he found that colleagues Stephen Hawking, Frank Tipler and Kip Thorne were investigating special circumstances in which time appeared to move backwards. Mallett began to explore the gravitational effects of a laser beam following a circular path. After complex calculations, he found his theory, an extrapolation of Einstein’s work, accepted by other physicists. Although his pipe dream of returning to save his father remains beyond reach, Mallett has achieved a significant scientific breakthrough.
A hokey but inspiring blend of personal narrative and scientific exploration.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2006
ISBN: 1-56025-869-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
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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