A clear picture of an extraordinary life of resilience, talent, and determination.
The authorized biography of Jazz Age trumpeter Arthur Briggs, who spent four of his prime years in a German concentration camp.
Granted access to Briggs’ personal details thanks to his only daughter, Atria (co-author: Traveling Soul: The Life of Curtis Mayfield, 2016) fashions a sympathetic look at this thoroughly upright musician, who chose to ply his art in Europe rather than America largely because of the racism and segregation that prevailed at the time. In that regard, he was joined by many others who crossed his path in the 1920s, such as Josephine Baker. Born in Grenada in 1901—his birth date is often listed as 1899 because he lied about it in order to join the military—and thus a British citizen, Briggs received training in classical music at a young age. In 1917, he moved to New York to join his sister, arriving just in time for the explosion of the Harlem Renaissance. During World War I, he joined the Harlem Hellfighters reserve band, under the mentorship of James Reese Europe, and toured Europe with the Southern Syncopated Orchestra, led by Will Marion Cook. These were his legendary mentors along with jazz clarinetist Sidney Bechet, a lifelong friend. Due to his strong work ethic, Briggs was often the organizer of his own groups—e.g., the popular Savoy Syncops Orchestra and others that included Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. Many of these bands were popular in Paris and elsewhere, even in Egypt—until the war, when Briggs chose, to his detriment, not to return to America. After trying to hide when the Nazis occupied Paris, he was arrested in October 1940 as “an enemy of the Reich.” As Atria reports in his readable, straightforward narrative, performing for the prisoners and the Nazi guards kept him sane during his imprisonment.
A clear picture of an extraordinary life of resilience, talent, and determination.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-914090-10-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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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