A compelling read for fans of Collins and/or those confronting their own addictive behavior.
The famed recording artist recalls her past struggles with overeating and alcoholism.
In her latest memoir, Collins (Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music, 2011, etc.) treads some familiar territory covered in her previous books, referencing love affairs with Stephen Stills and others, her many musical triumphs, and the devastating impact of her son’s suicide. More urgently, the author focuses on her addictions, specifically her long-standing ones with excessive alcohol and food consumption. The chapters cover specific decades of her life up through the 1980s, as Collins highlights the trajectory of her accomplishments in relation to the course of her illness and extreme forms of indulgence: several bottles of vodka consumed each week, frequent episodes of bingeing and purging. Despite these issues, however, her career continued to soar. “While I was performing my anxieties and fears disappeared; the music gave me peace of mind, the melodies and lyrics gave me wings,” she writes. “And the pain of the increase in my drinking and the growing evidence that I had a problem with food did not seem to impact my career.” She alternates her recovery story with biographical sketches of renowned diet and nutrition authorities such as Robert Atkins, Andrew Weil, Jean Nidtech, and Adelle Davis along with notable historical figures such as English Romantic poet Lord Byron, who also confronted an extreme eating disorder. For the most part, Collins is a graceful writer. In a memoir that is equal parts confessional drama and inspirational self-help book, she shares an engaging tale and provides some meaningful information for readers who may be struggling with similar issues. However, the alternating structure often feels contrived and may lead readers to question whether she was seeking ways to stretch her own narrative or perhaps had two books in mind.
A compelling read for fans of Collins and/or those confronting their own addictive behavior.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-54131-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
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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