In his debut, Hamlin—best known for his role as Perseus in the 1981 film Clash of the Titans, as well as his stint on L.A....
A comic memoir recounting the obstacles one man endured on his quest to become an actor.
In his debut, Hamlin—best known for his role as Perseus in the 1981 film Clash of the Titans, as well as his stint on L.A. Law—depicts how his lifetime of debacles began at an early age. At four he urinated in the dog dish, and a few years later, wrote a book report on Mein Kampf, resulting in his removal from school. On Christmas Day 1962, his parents offered him less offensive reading material—a five-year subscription to Playboy—though this would have an equally disastrous result for the hormone-crazed youth. From Hamlin's first introduction to the female body, the memoir takes a turn, no longer focusing on the innocent trials of a prepubescent boy but rather on the litany of sexual escapades that followed the actor throughout his life. While the author’s tales of sexual encounters string the narrative together, his romps are not the focal point. Instead, Hamlin's history with drugs overpowers the other aspects of the story. Though he explains his run-ins with law enforcement in a comical manner, readers will recognize the seriousness of his crimes. The book is rampant with road trips, fraternity debacles and prison sentences, yet when these unoriginal tales are told with hackneyed phrases (“Bring it on, baby!”; “But that's another story”), readers may desire more substance. Nevertheless, Hamlin's story has its charms, and his unabashed honesty provides a clear view of a boy's life in the late-’60s and early-’70s. In one instance, he describes selling himself as a handyman in order to raise money for a road trip to Woodstock. “I highly recommend this strategy of creating an income when you're seventeen and know how to do absolutely nothing but sleep and whack off,” he writes, acknowledging his own low expectations for himself in a world that would one day require much from him.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4391-6999-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
