A doctor with a conscience celebrates the preciousness of all human life in grim stories of death and dying among society's outcasts. The site of these graphic accounts is one 17-bed unit at the Spellman Center for HIV Related Diseases at New York City's St. Clare's Hospital. For over three years Baxter was a physician at this ``improbable crucible of despair and hope,'' treating paroled rapists, homeless alcoholics, drug addicts, and drag queens under third-world conditions—cockroaches and rodents in filthy rooms where ceilings seem always to be crumbling and the plumbing doesn't work; doctors in other parts of the hospital refuse Baxter's requests for consultations with his patients. He describes his typical workday with its multiple frustrations and seemingly insoluble problems, and the routine of Sister Pascal Comforti, director of pastoral care, whose problems with patients and their often fragmented families seem even more difficult than the author's. He presents dignified, compassionate portraits of patients (with names changed), including foul-mouthed Rosa, found comatose and half-naked in a subway tunnel; Sarah, who has sex in the hospital stairwells and smokes crack in the linen closets; Todd, a partial transsexual who refuses a needed medical procedure that he fears would mar his beautiful breasts; and demented Enrique, an ex-prisoner with both tuberculosis and AIDS. Baxter takes his title from Matthew 25:40, in which Jesus says to the righteous: ``Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.'' These words explain for Baxter why caring for such people is so necessary. Among the lessons he draws from his patients is that we are all living on borrowed time, and that if the ``least of these'' can face death without fear, so can we. Intended to inspire, this powerful book succeeds more often in shocking and angering the reader at the harrowing conditions to which these patients are subjected.
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-517-70699-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1997
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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