This slim volume chronicles Reynolds Price's four years with ``the eel,'' his name for the ten-inch long tumor that was found enmeshed in his spinal chord during his 51st year. With little fanfare or self-pity, the acclaimed author (Blue Calhoun, 1992; Kate Vaiden, 1986; etc.) and long-time teacher at Duke University takes the reader through each battle, medical and personal, from the ordeal of his initial and incomplete surgery to the debilitating effects of the ensuing radiation therapy, which left him paraplegic. He lavishes praise on nurses, therapists, and loyal friends along the way, while condemning unthinking doctors for their ignorance of the human element in practicing medicine. And he thanks the worthy; the book is dedicated, in part, to his surgeon. A particularly moving segment in its honesty and courage (although Price might very well deny the latter) is his struggle through rehab, ``a marooned island of damaged men and women intent on bringing ourselves to a state of repair that would let us visit the mainland again.'' Throughout, Price mixes facts from his calendar—mostly records of his pain level and physical descent- -with poems from his daybook. These verses allow the reader to touch the emotional river coursing beneath the narrative that the author works so hard to keep objective. Ultimately, there is something comforting about this book and, yes, inspiring. The eel is removed and Price learns to negotiate his pain. He returns to writing and teaching with a greater intensity than ever before. This is the story of a man who watches his first self die, and in place of it, a new self created; a story of resurrection, of transformation; a story of hope.
Pub Date: May 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-689-12197-0
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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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