A useful addition to the Alcott archives that would also appeal to younger readers.
A tightly focused biography on a brief period in the life of Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888): her time as a nurse during the Civil War.
Alcott’s life seems like something out of our imagination. She was raised in Concord, Massachusetts, with a transcendentalist father and social worker mother, and she became closely acquainted with John Brown, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass, with whom she shared abolitionist sympathies. Though she experienced a wealth of intellectual stimulus, she and her family also struggled financially, causing her and her sisters to seek work where they could find it. As young adult nonfiction author Seiple (Death on the River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Amazon Adventure, 2017, etc.) shows, that was a most difficult task in 1860s America, where options for women were severely limited. Thankfully, Alcott realized her writing talent early, and by her late 20s, she had published a book as well as articles in the Atlantic Monthly. In 1858, tragedy struck with the death of her younger sister, despite Louisa’s devoted nursing. By 1862, she discovered the popularity of sensational thrillers published in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper and provided a steady stream of stories under a male name, thus providing a small income. Even with her literary success, she felt the need to affect the ongoing war, so she volunteered and traveled to Washington, D.C., to serve at the Union Hotel Hospital. There she met a badly wounded man who opened her heart and wakened her authentic voice, transforming her characters and stories forever. During her time at the hospital, Alcott nearly died of pneumonia and returned to Concord. There she wrote Hospital Sketches, Thoreau’s Flute, and Pauline’s Passion and Punishment, which earned enough to save her family. Then she published Little Women, in which “she expertly weaved her progressive beliefs and empathetic insights…creating original and unforgettable characters.” Throughout, Seiple’s fluid style of writing displays few fireworks but makes the story read like a novel.
A useful addition to the Alcott archives that would also appeal to younger readers.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-58005-804-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
