A work as charming and elegant as the actress herself, conveying her remarkable career as a survivor of the Iranian debacle.
From the Iranian Revolution to Hollywood, with courage and style.
The first Iranian and Middle Eastern actor to be nominated for an Academy Award (House of Sand and Fog), Aghdashloo tells a plucky tale of fortune and tenacity, beginning in Tehran in the late 1960s as the firstborn of a well-off civil servant. Although the shah had modernized the country considerably, traditional values were still strictly adhered to—e.g., the interdiction on becoming an actress, as the author desperately desired from early on. While her father had decided she was going to become a doctor, the then-19-year-old author was waylaid by a dashing older suitor, Aydin Aghdashloo, a well-connected artist who truly swept her off her feet. He also assured her that, as his wife, she could pursue her dream. She did, instantly procuring a spot at the theater workshop that would provide her with some teeth-cutting roles over the next few years. Yet the political situation grew dodgy by the late 1970s, and the author writes that she had to choose between staying in a repressive atmosphere that censored the arts and leaving her husband, who had decided to stay in Iran. It was a heartrending decision, but the author does not adequately explain it, perhaps due to the confusion of the time. Aghdashloo installed herself in London, returned to school and completed her college degree by her early 30s, working largely at Browns boutique in Knightsbridge and selling her jewelry and car. She eventually found acting work that conveyed her to Hollywood. Though somewhat high-handedly edited, her work conveys a tremendous energy and love for her craft and adopted country.
A work as charming and elegant as the actress herself, conveying her remarkable career as a survivor of the Iranian debacle.Pub Date: June 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-200980-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
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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