An odd yet effective mix of cynicism and sentimentality.
A frank account of the challenges faced by an American family seeking to adopt five children from Russia.
John and Amy Simmons have four sons; one is an adopted special needs child. Yet without girls, their family seemed incomplete, and so they resolved to adopt their first daughters. In his memoir, John Simmons recounts an experience both trying and inspirational: The practically-minded author and his compassionate wife, frustrated by arbitrary rules of the American foster system, opted to travel to Russia to expand their family, only to find a whole new set of challenges and heartbreaking conditions in Russian orphanages. Complicating matters further, after adopting two sisters, Katya and Luba, along with a sickly boy named Kirrill (to become Sarah, Celeste, and Denney, respectively), the Simmonses discovered that the girls’ abusive mother had other children, and they were resolute in saving as many of their siblings as possible. Simmons’ (Marvelous Journey Home, 2007) memoir straightforwardly depicts his family’s expansion and its concomitant struggles, as well as his inner misgivings. Told in a colloquial style, the author assumes a bluntness that’s strangely refreshing, even when bordering on the judgmental; it offers balance to what could have been a saccharine tale. Repetition, which would become tiresome under other circumstances, captures the tedium John and Amy faced and offers an approximation of their endless waiting. Yet the book truly excels in its depictions of other people, including young Celeste, who’s coddled and assertive; Celeste’s older sister, Sarah, who suffers from behavioral problems and survivor’s guilt; and a Boy Scout-esque consular official at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Despite the narrative’s intimacy, there are moments when the author abruptly, even admittedly, closes himself off from the reader—the difficulties of the older siblings joining the family is glossed over, while Simmons himself seems uncomfortable dissecting his own feelings as it concerns his oft-mentioned struggle with his own pragmatism and his wife’s religious leanings.
An odd yet effective mix of cynicism and sentimentality.Pub Date: June 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0972591669
Page Count: 376
Publisher: White Knight Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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