Fogerty has had better luck than most, but overall, this is an unfortunate autobiography.
A memoir by the Creedence Clearwater Revival founder and writer of canonical 1960s songs such as “Proud Mary” and “Down on the Corner.”
Sensitive readers will cringe from the beginning, when Fogerty, that great exponent of gritty swamp rock though a child of the Bay Area, hazards that the fact that he had a black babydoll as an infant “predisposed me to love black music, black culture,” while a beloved recording of “Camptown Races” predisposed him to imagine himself a Southerner just as Stephen Foster, a native of Pittsburgh, did. Certainly the poverty of his childhood gave the author authentic working-class credentials, though he became a working musician as a teenager and hit stardom early on. Fogerty’s account of that ascent is full of previously aired grudges against Fantasy Records head Saul Zaentz, who locked him into a punishing contract that he admittedly didn’t read. He doesn’t have a lot of good to say about his former band mates, either; he grumbles that they were suing him over trademark issues even as he was wrapping up this book. One wishes better of Fogerty, who’s written so many enduring songs but whose best moments here are in the fannish geekdom of 45 records and guitar heroes—even if some of the worst moments are tossed-off assessments of his own contemporary favorites. On Brad Paisley: “He is obviously one of the most talented guitar players that has ever lived.” On Bruce Springsteen: “A really great guy.” The least satisfying moments are when Fogerty turns over authorship to his wife, Julie, who may have saved him from addiction but who can’t quite redeem this book. “I try and have him be in the moment,” she writes blandly, “unrehearsed and wonderfully him.” The effort, joint and individual, is obviously well-intentioned, but the book is largely unrevealing, a pale shadow compared to, say, Keith Richards’ Life (2010) or Neil Young’s Waging Heavy Peace (2012).
Fogerty has had better luck than most, but overall, this is an unfortunate autobiography.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-24457-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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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