An enjoyably nostalgic scrapbook stocked full of memories from twins born into a political dynasty.
Fraternal twins and philanthropists Jenna (Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope, 2007) and Barbara fondly portray the peaks and valleys of life carrying the Bush surname.
Determined to “de-emphasize that there was anything unduly special about being a Bush,” parents George and Laura protectively raised the authors with structure and honor. Jenna, named after her maternal grandmother, was more outspoken, a self-described “boundary pusher,” while Barbara remained thoughtful and pensive. Told in alternating narratives, the book honestly illuminates the experience of being a family member throughout the Bushes’ two generations of political prominence. Both women write vividly and affectionately about their differences and theorize that perhaps it was their “inborn duality” that made it easier for them to tolerate the random public assumptions made about their parents’ yin-and-yang personalities and proclivities. The sisters agree that in many ways, George’s boisterousness and penchant for reading and Laura’s “closet hippie and Rastafarian” ways mirrored Jenna’s melodramatic, emboldened recklessness and Barbara’s careful deliberations on life, love, and family. Both contribute an assortment of personal anecdotes about their time growing up in Midland, Texas, and the family lexicon, which had pet names for everyone. As young members of the Bush clan, each sister reflects on living through the presidencies of their grandfather and father, the tabloid media and general public scrutiny their family endured, details about the Secret Service and White House life (ghost stories included), and how some risky globe-trotting in their teens ultimately freed and matured them. Jenna bemoans her loss of anonymity as a charter school teacher during her father’s term, which placed her in the cross hairs of critical students, and she admits to an imprudent youth. The description of the crushing reality of their grandfather’s descent into Alzheimer’s disease is particularly heartbreaking, but the twins’ sisterly love is evident throughout.
An enjoyably nostalgic scrapbook stocked full of memories from twins born into a political dynasty.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5387-1141-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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