A heartfelt and cautionary success story incorporating both the deceptive promises of wealth and the life-changing power of...
A former Wall Street hedge fund trader’s transformative turnabout from greed to philanthropy.
Raised in Southern California by a doting mother and a crass, dismissive father, Polk grew up dreaming of the day when the need for money wouldn’t dictate his every choice. In his engrossing debut memoir, the author retraces his beginnings as an overweight youth mercilessly bullied at summer camp and protective of his twin brother, Ben. Polk reinvented himself in high school, and his competitive nature matured as he became voraciously determined to outshine Ben in grades, sports, and dates. Acceptance at Columbia University further fed his overachievement fixation, though things almost derailed after bouts of bulimia, a suspension for theft, and problems involving drugs and alcohol. The memoir picks up narrative tension once Polk shifts his attention to his early 20s, during which his motivation and greed began to surmount his better judgment. A summer internship on a frantic stock market trading floor fueled a drive to succeed in business. Once he was hired on Wall Street, the salary and exorbitant bonuses became intoxicants to Polk, who became addicted to money with an eagerness to adopt the “easy confidence of millionaires.” The author writes with sincerity and passion, traversing over the increasing trouble his greed immersed him in, though it’s clear his behavior is derived more from a self-sabotaging, deep-seated psychological need to accumulate wealth, validation, and for “someone to tell me I was worth being taken care of.” Though Polk impressively aced the Wall Street learning curve and became a high-ranking senior trader, his introspection brought his insatiable avarice, maltreatment of women, and general misery into stark focus. This epiphany, somewhat rare for a self-made millionaire, inspired him to break away and embark on more personally enriching and rewarding humanitarian ventures like the food, education, and empowerment-building program he founded for families in low-income communities.
A heartfelt and cautionary success story incorporating both the deceptive promises of wealth and the life-changing power of self-awareness.Pub Date: July 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-8598-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
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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