Readers who can overlook Zéphanie’s self-indulgent prose will be stirred by her courage and intentionality.
A coming-of-age memoir set in World War II-era France.
Zéphanie grows up in an uncaring family, surrounded by the petty cruelties of poverty, illness, alcoholism and city life. As a young child, she is shuffled among country homes, militaristic camps and boarding schools, and develops a strong moral compass and an unending compassion for the suffering and downtrodden. When WWII breaks out, she manages not just to survive but to nurture her “inner voice,” a mix of religious understanding and almost supernatural premonition. From the death of her father to joining the French resistance against the Nazis to time spent in the French Air Force, Zéphanie longs for love and looks for the good in everyone. Her prose, while often clunky and overly lush, nevertheless richly invokes the physicality of the time and place. Her insistence on referring to herself in the third person can feel ponderous, especially when compounded with her tendency toward high-minded musings and an overuse of phrases such as “Silent Heroes.” Her insistence on the precociousness and goodness of her young self, while creating a bond between her and the reader, can be a turn-off, especially when most of her goodness is not so much exceptional as it is remaining human in circumstances where others lose their humanity. Despite all this, Zéphanie’s earnest recounting of her life and deep engagement with morality make her a compelling and sympathetic character. She examines family life in depth, shedding light on the difficulties both neglected children and overworked parents faced during the time. Her fearlessness in speaking up for what’s right, whether against the arrogance of American troops in Paris or the callousness of nuns who mistreat her despite their Christian beliefs, is an inspiring reminder of all the ways in which people can stand up against injustice. The first of a two-part autobiography, Zéphanie’s story paints a thoughtful picture of a young girl coming into her own humanity.
Readers who can overlook Zéphanie’s self-indulgent prose will be stirred by her courage and intentionality.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2010
ISBN: 978-1452054872
Page Count: 314
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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
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