A meticulous and thoughtful scientific exploration.
A thorough tour of the science of depression, including its causes and its treatment.
Motivated to understand the suicidal depression that plagued a close friend, debut author Zabel, a retired major general in the U.S. Air Force, delved deeply into the constantly evolving research, hoping to find answers. The result is this remarkably comprehensive assessment of the competing theories regarding the reasons for depression, and of its therapeutic treatment. The author lucidly chronicles the shifting expert consensus on depression, from its interpretation as a trauma response to its acknowledgement as a biologically based illness. The candidate causes, however, are many. Is it the result of a chemical deficiency, or an excess of inflammation, or is it a function of cellular energy metabolism? One promising theory, the author notes, views depression as a stultification of neuroplasticity; a brain is in the continuous throes of “abrasion” and repair, and depression may result when the effects of the former surpass the latter’s. Zabel’s study is breathtakingly expansive—she looks at epidemiological surveys of a range of demographics, and provides a rigorous but accessible synopsis of the brain’s general functioning. The book is a combination of highly technical research and anecdotal accounts, as the author interviews many sufferers of depression, endowing the work with a sensitively handled human element. There are times when a lay reader may feel overwhelmed by the large amount of minute detail. However, Zabel never strays too far from the big picture and resists the allure of facile answers: “At my core, I am reductionist—I want to find the simple solution, the fundamental biological problem that is depression...but depression doesn’t support that. It is hugely complex; an emergent outcome of a brain under attack.”
A meticulous and thoughtful scientific exploration.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73584-540-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Sarah Zabel Enterprises, LLC
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.
A principled athlete strives for social justice.
Kaepernick forthrightly details the activism that earned him global renown but cost him his NFL career. In 2016, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback “was filled with disgust” after police shootings of fellow Black men in several American cities. Before a preseason game, he made a spontaneous decision: “It hit me in that moment that I should find a seat” during the national anthem. He did the same at two more games before reporters noticed. Kaepernick will forever be associated with “taking a knee” during the anthem, but he credits Eric Reid—a teammate who agreed with Kaepernick’s message—for suggesting that they kneel together during subsequent anthems. The protest changed everything for Kaepernick. President Trump vilified him. Kaepernick and his wife received death threats. And though he’d taken the 49ers to a Super Bowl, no teams would sign him. He will likely make news for his take on Jay-Z, whose lucrative partnership with the NFL was criticized as an attempt to launder the league’s reputation. Visiting Africa, where Kaepernick learns about “African leaders who willingly sold their own people to the enslavers,” he “couldn’t help but to think about Jay-Z and the NFL.” In opening chapters, Kaepernick recalls suffering traumatic racial abuse as a child. Being in “white spaces”—he was adopted by white parents—placed him “under a microscope every minute of every day.” He isn’t always nuanced, depicting some people he disagrees with as cartoonishly clueless. But his writing about how college and pro teams “lied” to him about injuries underlines his “feeling of being a disposable commodity.” A decade has passed since Kaepernick played in the NFL, but he stays fit in case “a team needing a QB” calls.
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781538777879
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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