History Today columnist Stanley (Kennedy vs. Carter: The 1980 Battle for the Democratic Party’s Soul, 2010) treats the paleoconservative and “culture warrior” to a sympathetic close-up and finds he’s a hard guy to dislike—even if we have him to thank for Sarah Palin.
Buchanan has been on the American political scene for decades. This crisp narrative goes all the way back to the beginning on the streets of Georgetown where he learned the importance of quick hands and unwavering loyalty. Both attributes would serve him well throughout his stormy life as a political pundit, advisor to two presidents and three-time presidential contender. Stanley tracks these events with a professional level of scrutiny that is rarely unflattering, but never quite fawning. We learn that Buchanan stokes the fire in his belly with a burning desire to return America to a sanitized version of itself, a time when same-sex couples were criminals and every nice white family had a black maid all its own. And so what if he understood AIDS as “nature’s retribution” and once referred to Hitler as a “man of courage.” He’s also sharp, witty and talented. Even liberal commentator Rachel Maddow, we learn, reserves a begrudging affection for the guy. These confounding complexities are so delightfully examined that the last third of the book proves to be something of a disappointment, as the biographical thread almost gets lost in tangential analyses of dusty opponents like Bob Dole, Lamar Alexander and George H.W. Bush. Stanley gives only cursory attention to Buchanan’s TV career as a ubiquitous talking head. The takeaway is that while he has been consigned as an “also-ran,” Buchanan has undoubtedly been successful in at least one thing: elevating group biases to the level of “cultural issues” and thereby making possible the ascent of the Tea Party and similar groups.
An engrossing look inside an ultra-conservative mind.
Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-58174-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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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