Muñoz offers little turning of new ground in what has become a fertile genre, but the book is enjoyably idiosyncratic and...
From physician Muñoz, a chronicle of becoming a doctor at the extremely demanding Johns Hopkins cardiology program.
After an introduction, the opening section of this memoir of a year of fellowship rotations at Johns Hopkins hospital—a fellowship is a three-to-four–year, post-residency position overseeing residents while being overseen by an attending specialist—is ill-advised. The author drones on about his pedigree—Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Johns Hopkins again—the odds of becoming a Hopkins Fellow (1 in 10,000), and the Navy SEAL–like training involved (the book’s title speaks volumes), and it exudes smug superiority. But forgive these mercifully few pages to get a quite satisfying immersion into what medical specialization requires. Muñoz thankfully shifts from embarrassingly tedious to humanely sympathetic as he chronicles how he had to acquire a measure of expertise in what can be described as stations of the cardiology cross: consultation, nuclear medicine, heart failure and transplantation, intensive care, electrophysiology, echocardiography, and more. The author is honest enough to admit which tasks bored him, which opened him up to the big picture—how a heart transplant is not just about blood type, but “habits, foibles, fears”—which attending doctors he admired and why (“Dr. Franklin’s ability to listen and connect with his patients also means that they are often extremely well informed”), or why not to jump to fast conclusions. Muñoz has nothing new to say about some old questions—“Why are we allowed to make these calls over people’s fates? Who are we to decide? It’s fair. It’s not fair. Someone has to do it. No one should do it”—and he pays no more than lip service to the critical quality of empathy. He shines, however, in explaining a wide variety of conditions, and there is polish to the patient vignettes, giving them deeply human appeal.
Muñoz offers little turning of new ground in what has become a fertile genre, but the book is enjoyably idiosyncratic and elucidative.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6887-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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