A captivating portrait of a woman in search of herself.
A novelist’s engaging coming-of-age memoir.
In her novel Sleeping Beauties (1993), Moore (Creative Writing/Princeton Univ.; Paradise of the Pacific: Approaching Hawaii, 2015, etc.) spun a dark fairy tale complete with a wicked stepmother and handsome prince who turns out, sadly, not to be charming. Here, she evokes that work of fiction: an account of her life, adventures, and misadventures, from childhood to her 30s. Once again, there is a cruel stepmother, a woman her father quickly married after Moore’s mother, who had suffered several mental breakdowns, died in her sleep; a hardscrabble young adulthood when Moore, at 17, was sent from her native Hawaii to live with her grandmother and aunt in Pennsylvania; beneficent godmothers; handsome lovers; and fabulous clothes. Moore’s stepmother resented Moore and her siblings, rationed their food, and deprived them of simple childhood pleasures. To escape her repressive home, Moore slipped away to visit a neighboring couple, the extremely wealthy and influential Kaisers: he, the famous shipbuilder; she, his beautiful younger wife, who bestowed on Moore castoff designer clothes, furs, and shoes. The Kaisers’ connections opened doors for the author: a job at Bergdorf’s; modeling, including at a boat trade show, where she wore a glittering silver sheath as Miss Aluminum; and minor roles in movies. With no aspirations to be an actor, Moore takes a wry, cleareyed view of the movie world’s pretensions. Like the Kaisers, Connie Wald, the glamorous widow of producer Jerry Wald, proved to be another benefactor, launching Moore into a world of literary, artistic, and entertainment royalty: Joan Didion, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Mike Nichols, and Jack Nicholson (with whom Moore had a brief fling), among many others. Moore portrays herself as “self-invented…a girl on the run,” buffeted by life, “high-spirited” but always in need of emotional and financial protection and constantly afflicted by a “ceaseless longing for my mother.” By her 30s, she stood on firmer ground: divorced, mother to an infant daughter, newly confident about shaping her future.
A captivating portrait of a woman in search of herself.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-374-27971-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
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.
