A positive, perceptive primer for cancer patients and caregivers.
A novelist and her husband share insights regarding his cancer journey in this inspirational memoir.
In 2013, Wiggins slipped off a ladder, with persistent back pain leading to a diagnosis of stage 3 multiple myeloma, a rare cancer formed by malignant plasma cells. The couple mobilized to address Wiggins’ care, which included living in temporary quarters near the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance while he underwent aggressive chemotherapy and stem cell transplants. They share their story through essays, poems, and, most particularly, letters written during this period, with some family/friend replies also included. Contributions from Wiggins, a scientist, focus on the clinical analysis of his condition. Rolnick, whose musings make up the majority of this memoir, is more literary and emotional, noting how she relished spooning within the “cocoon” of Wiggins’ arms and how the cocoon envelops “cancer patients, medical teams, and caregivers.” The couple weigh in on the major lab mix-up that could have cost Wiggins his life. Additionally, Rolnick touches on her mother’s death and granddaughter’s birth during this time. By memoir’s end, the couple are back in their Washington state home, with Wiggins in remission. Given that Wiggins’ cancer is incurable, however, the future remains uncertain. Rolnick concludes the book with a self-questionnaire, answering “Did you ever get angry?” with “I decided early on not to waste my time on anger,” and questions for readers to ponder, including practicalities of caregiving—how to handle stress, finances, etc. Rolnick (River of Angels, 2010, etc.) deploys her writer’s craft to evocative effect in this collection. She conjures up several striking images, not only her cocoon analogy, but also her comparison of Jim’s “secret strength” to “upside-down dogwood flowers.” Yet Rolnick isn’t simply lyrical; she also provides unsparing glimpses into the challenges and struggles faced by this couple, which she makes clear were made bearable by their loving connection and the ideology that “Finding joy is a choice.” Thus, while some of the less-than-revelatory friend replies could have been trimmed, overall, this collection delivers instructive, uplifting testimony.
A positive, perceptive primer for cancer patients and caregivers.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9845119-3-8
Page Count: 118
Publisher: Sedro Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
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
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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