Observant and bracingly candid.
A witty, provocative study that examines why so many millenials can't seem to launch into adulthood and now find themselves “wandering—if not literally, then psychically.”
Former Lifetime and McCall’s editor-in-chief Koslow (The Late, Lamented Molly Marx, 2009, etc.) is the parent of young adult children for whom “postponing financial independence, jobs, marriage [and] a hovel of [their] own” has become the norm. This postponement has in turn given rise to a new developmental phase that Koslow calls “adultescence.” This period (ages 22 to 35), writes the author, is characterized by an “exploration [of self and the world] that seems to go on forever, not unlike the Rolling Stones.” A bad economy and severely limited career prospects for young people with no real work experience are only part of the reason for the rise of this new phenomenon. Many adultescents are also taking to heart what their boomer parents have told them since childhood: that they can be and do anything they want because they are special. Consequently, they are creating lives that appear to be breaking all the rules that have characterized the successful, well-ordered lives of their parents. Not only are they not settling for whatever jobs they can find and seeking careers to which they can dedicate their lives; they are also redefining relationships, such as marriage, that once signaled a definitive entry into adulthood. Koslow argues that these hyper-mobile 20- and 30-somethings move across borders and, when necessary, into their parents' homes with equal ease largely because well-intentioned boomers, who secretly “lust for their [children's] attention,” have implicitly agreed to the arrangement. However, as Koslow ultimately concludes, neither is able to evolve their roles. Instead, boomers and their offspring remain tied to each other, caught in a never-never land of loving codependency.
Observant and bracingly candid.Pub Date: June 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02362-2
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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