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FOUNDING FATHER

REDISCOVERING GEORGE WASHINGTON

An elegant overview of the life of this nation's founding father. Brookhiser (The Way of the WASP, 1990), a senior editor at the National Review, examines George Washington's career as military man, politician, and citizen. Brookhiser notes that Washington became something of a myth in his own time (in 1776, a town in western Massachusetts renamed itself in his honor, and post-revolutionary babies throughout the US were christened after him) and that this mythic status has made it difficult for us to appreciate the man. It doesn't help matters, Brookhiser continues, that Washington was extraordinarily reserved; the author cannot help taking digs at ``kinder, gentler presidents who feel our pain'' in the light of the first president's careful modesty. Other biographers have painted fuller pictures of George Washington, but this slender book is a worthy appreciation in its own right. The author runs freely with small details that, on examination, tell us much about Washington's greatness; he sidestepped, for instance, the call to become king of the new nation in the face of widespread popular appeal for a homegrown monarch, and against much resistance in the Constitutional Convention he held out for federal authority to veto state laws that were unconstitutional. Of special interest is Brookhiser's analysis of the two chief crises of Washington's presidential career, namely the Whiskey Rebellion and the struggle to ratify Jay's Treaty with England; the former illustrates Washington's wise exercise of both restraint and force as necessary, and the latter shows his understanding of the role of a small, new nation in international politics. Brookhiser's only missteps, and they are rare indeed, are in the direction of psychobiography; to understand Washington, it does not help much to remark that ``a sense of latent anger, of suppressed force, can be an aspect of courage.'' A well-placed attempt to put George Washington once again ``first in the hearts of his countrymen.''

Pub Date: Feb. 22, 1996

ISBN: 0-684-82291-1

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Free Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1995

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WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...

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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

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

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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