A rich portrait of a brutal age.
Biography of an African slave who rose to fame and fortune in 16th-century Japan.
Making his literary debut, Lockley (Nihon Univ. College of Law) teams up with Girard (Mary Rose, 2018, etc.) to create a fast-paced, novelistic history of Japan’s feudal past, centered on the life of Yasuke, who arrived in Japan in 1579 as the indentured bodyguard and valet of Alessandro Valignano, a wealthy and influential Portuguese Jesuit missionary. Drawing on abundant sources, including archival material, the authors offer a panoramic view of politics, sex, religion, and war. They recount in horrifying detail the massacre of African families and kidnapping of boys by Arab, Persian, and Indian slave merchants that resulted in Yasuke’s enslavement. Growing up in India as a boy soldier, he was “trained in violence, as well as comportment and service,” making him an appealing servant for the Jesuits, who fanned out across Japan, determined to save souls. Over six feet tall, strong and muscular, Yasuke was an intimidating presence and protector as the Jesuits battled religious and political factions in a nation beset by endlessly warring factions. Blood and gore ooze from the pages as the authors describe ruthless slaughter, beheadings, disembowelment, rapes, and torture. Ninjas, who “killed only for money, and had no honor beyond what they were paid,” were hardly the most vicious, and Yasuke proved himself a valiant fighter. Seeking favor with the mighty warlord Oda Nobunaga, Valignano handed over Yasuke as “a weapon bearer and novelty.” Delighted, the warlord awarded Yasuke the elite status of samurai. “You are my black warrior,” Nobunaga proclaimed. “The demon who will ride beside me into battle, the dark angel who protects me and my family.” Because black skin, although unusual in Japan at the time, carried “entirely positive” connotations, Yasuke became revered, and his prowess became legendary. “People in the streets did not only gape at him,” the authors write, “they bowed, heads to the earth, as they addressed him.”
A rich portrait of a brutal age.Pub Date: April 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-335-14102-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 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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