This biography of a man who was most active when unconscious will excite those who already find Cayce’s unconsciousness...
An exhaustive biography of the legendary psychic (1877–1945), likely to entrance Cayce’s fans but try the patience of unbelievers.
Kirkpatrick (Lords of Sipan, 1992) received unprecedented access to the Cayce archives and conducted hundreds of interviews. The result is a thorough account of Cayce’s life, but not an objective one (since the author’s sympathies are clearly with the psychic). Biographical details are recounted in detail, from Cayce’s boyhood in Kentucky to his mundane early jobs to his sometimes-turbulent marriage. But most of the attention is given to his career as psychic healer, seer, and mystic. While in hypnotic trance, Cayce purportedly became the mouthpiece for an occult presence called the “Source,” which could diagnose illness, prescribe remedies (often involving unorthodox ingredients like tree bark), predict the future, discover hidden treasures, invent gadgets, offer career guidance, describe contemporary people’s past lives in ancient Egypt, supplement the Bible, map Atlantis, and discourse on “the design of the universe.” All this occurred in more than 14,000 documented sessions (called “readings”), choice samples of which are lovingly presented here. New Age devotees will probably find much of interest, although even they may find some portions ponderous: how much, after all, do we really need to know about Cayce the insurance salesman? The unconverted will be still more put off. At its best, Kirkpatrick’s account reads like magic realism, reporting wonders matter-of-factly and stirring in such famous visitors as Houdini and Edison; at its worst, it sounds annoyingly gullible, softening evidence that might count against Cayce, uncritically accepting Caycean versions of events, and making excuses for Cayce’s failures. His debacles as a psychic oil-driller, for example, are chalked up to not being “right with the Creative Forces.”
This biography of a man who was most active when unconscious will excite those who already find Cayce’s unconsciousness exciting—but it will probably leave others as mystified as before. (photos, not seen)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-57322-139-2
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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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