Sad and revealing, but less powerful than other prison sagas like Thomas Gaddis’ classic Birdman of Alcatraz or, more...
Digressing from his previous focus on the formative years of Western civilization (The Mysteries of the Middle Ages, 2006, etc.), Cahill gives a personal account of a Texan executed in 2004 for a 1992 murder.
The author, who first visited Dominique Green on death row in 2003, makes no bones about his belief that the case represents a gross miscarriage of justice. He may not convince every reader, given that the murder was committed during an armed robbery Green admitted participating in, the weapon was found in his car and he tried to coerce one of his partners in crime into making up an alibi. Cahill is more effective at demonstrating the inherent flaws in the Texas judicial system as well as the inhumanity of life on death row. Raised by abusive, drug-addicted parents, Green was 18 when he was charged with the fatal shooting of a truck driver outside a Houston convenience store. His court-appointed lawyers were both inexperienced and negligent. Two of his co-defendants later received reduced sentences; the lone white suspect was never charged at all, in return for turning informant. Condemned to death, Green transformed himself into a model prisoner who eventually won the friendship and support of the victim’s family. He was also aided by Sheila Murphy, a former Chicago judge who took up his appeal, and by the Community of Sant’Egidio, an international charity based in Rome. Cahill, recruited to the cause by Murphy, elevated the case’s profile by arranging a prison visit from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who later called Green “a remarkable advertisement for God.” The author clearly demonstrates Green’s spiritual and intellectual growth while a death row inmate, but his subjective approach weakens this slim narrative’s dramatic punch.
Sad and revealing, but less powerful than other prison sagas like Thomas Gaddis’ classic Birdman of Alcatraz or, more recently, John Carlin’s Playing the Enemy.Pub Date: March 10, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-52019-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
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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