Despite the unrelenting passages of human suffering, the authors offer a fascinating—and ultimately uplifting—exploration of...
The story of an Iraqi and an Iranian who became “as close as real brothers, with blended families and shared histories.”
During the horrific Battle of Khorramshahr in 1982, part of the Iran-Iraq War, Haftlang, at the age of 13, was serving as an Iranian soldier when he decided to spare the life of Iraqi soldier Aboud. Here, with the assistance of former San Francisco Chronicle features writer May, the two former enemy soldiers relate their brutal saga, which features an unexpected resolution. Readers learn about Haftlang’s brutal childhood in Iran and Aboud’s relatively prosperous existence as a restaurant/bakery manager in Iraq. After the bloody battlefield encounter in which the severely wounded Aboud would have died without the inexplicably compassionate decision by Haftlang, the combatants certainly never expected to meet again. During the extended conflict led by Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini, Haftlang and Aboud both ended up as prisoners of war. Much of the book offers graphic details about the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by the Iranians and vice versa. Certainly, some readers will find the details of torture nauseating and may need to skip ahead, but the story is worth persevering. After Haftlang and Aboud were allowed to return to their homelands following years of captivity, they discovered that their families and friends had assumed they were dead. Each man eventually found a way to immigrate to Canada, where, during a chance encounter at the Vancouver Association for the Survivors of Torture in 2001, they realized their connection on the battlefield two decades earlier. They formed a friendship transcending nationality, language differences, and age, and their tale, which alternates throughout the book, is quite remarkable.
Despite the unrelenting passages of human suffering, the authors offer a fascinating—and ultimately uplifting—exploration of cultures unknown to many readers.Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68245-011-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Regan Arts
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
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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