A culturally rich and rewarding personal chronicle of ethnic faith and intermingled tradition.
A heartfelt memoir plumbs the multilayered experience of being Muslim in America.
With a steady infusion of verve and personality, Rehman immerses readers in the traditions of a Middle Eastern culture in which prearranged adolescent marriages (including her own) are not uncommon. In 1971, the author, the accommodating daughter of a lieutenant colonel, arrived in the United States as a 20-year-old Pakistani, planning only to remain in America for two years while her charming, charismatic husband, Khalid, finished his medical residency. Rehman appropriately counters lavish descriptions of gilded pre-wedding rituals and the pageantry of the matrimonial ceremony with discussions of the culture clash as her new life in New York City began. Her tendency to inject plucky, italicized interior asides, however, has the uneven narrative effect of being both whimsical and interruptive. Self-indulgences aside, the author writes candidly about feeling insulted when American women questioned the validity of her predestined marriage or the culture-contradictory ideas of nursing homes for elderly family members. Holidays and childbirth proved more complicated and further loosened Rehman’s grip on her religion, and later, she faced the challenge of incorporating Islamic religion into the lives of her Americanized children. Though she stringently resisted her own Americanization, 44 years later, Rehman remains a content citizen with a career in hospital administration, years dedicated to women’s equality, and an executive position at an Islamic multifaith organization, which, the author rivetingly details, faced an anti-Islamic backlash for their participation in the construction of a Muslim mosque blocks from the 9/11 site in downtown Manhattan. In her closing remarks, the author reflects on the contemporary shift taking place within her culture, her hopes for continued cultural pluralism in America, and the need for safe community spaces for immigrants “where we can be wholly Muslim and wholly American.” Rehman's memoir offers a deeper understanding and appreciation for Muslim lifestyles while imparting a message of unity and international fellowship.
A culturally rich and rewarding personal chronicle of ethnic faith and intermingled tradition.Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62872-663-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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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