An engrossing profile of Hardy Hendren, chief of surgery at Boston's Children's Hospital, whose skills are devoted to undoing ``nature's worst mistakes.'' Miller, a staff writer for Rhode Island's Providence Journal-Bulletin, entwines a second tale with Hendren's—that of a family (the ``Moores'') whose daughter Lucy is born in late l989 with gross deformities affecting many of her internal organs. The two stories come together in the OR at Children's Hospital, where Hendren spends over 16 hours undoing the anatomic confusion of 14-month-old Lucy's body. Miller heightens the suspense of this scene, which spans most of the book, by repeatedly stepping away to describe Hendren's life—his childhood, schooling, military service, marriage, family, relations with colleagues, even his strong opinions on malpractice lawyers (``scurrilous, unprincipled bastards''), the ACLU (``weirdos and creeps''), and the high crime-rate (he favors public executions). Nicknamed ``Hardly Human'' for his bedside manner or perhaps his prodigious memory, or, even more likely, for his OR stamina, Hendren at 64 is a surgeon at the peak of his career, highly confident and highly competent. Although concentrating on Hendren as a tough M.D., Miller also shows him as a devoted husband, a father helpless to cure his own daughter's diabetes, and a proud grandfather. Occasionally, Miller overdetails Hendren's biographical background and includes material that seems to belong in some other book (the story of one Max Warburg's leukemia is unrelated to either Hendren or the Moores). Miller is at his riveting best when describing surgery and the atmosphere of the OR. A well-researched, well-told tale of surgical expertise transforming bodies and lives. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs- -not seen.)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-679-40264-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1992
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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