Equally sardonic and informative—definitely not your average cancer memoir.
In his humorous debut memoir, Williams envisions his shambolic prostate cancer saga as the education of a “medical dope” into “healthy hope.”
A Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist and editor based in Boca Raton, Florida, Williams embarked on an unwelcome medical odyssey after a biopsy revealed he had prostate cancer. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of a three-year comedy of errors. The radical robotic prostatectomy went well, but it was followed by hernias, MRSA, kidney failure, shingles, and eye troubles. Doctors failed him with a “prescription fiasco” and a canceled surgery. This might all have made for an overwhelmingly depressing litany of suffering were it not for Williams’ winning second-person, present-tense narration. By recounting his journey like a set of instructions to a hapless new patient, he involves readers on an intimate level and gains wry perspective on his own circumstances. Along the way, he gives readable accounts of bodily processes and treatment history, such as a description of early dialysis. In one memorable chapter, he also recalls four previous occasions when he faced down death: pneumonia at age 4, two reckless teenage car accidents, and incarceration in a Malawi prison. “Humor is the best doctor you will ever know,” Williams insists, and he follows his own advice by finding the funny side of every situation. That doctor who caused a prescription snafu—which gave Williams blisters all over his groin and legs—attended “the 10,623rd best medical school in the world.” Even catheterization and erectile dysfunction offer a few laughs, the latter entailing a special class and a penis pump. Clip art and stock photos heading each chapter and in advertising postcards at the end seem gimmicky but add color and whimsy. Yet Williams stresses that patients must demand answers and hold their physicians to account. There are serious warnings here, too, often delivered in short “Warrior Patient rule” aphorisms at the end of each chapter. For instance, “If you need help, get it. Bravery is for dead people.”
Equally sardonic and informative—definitely not your average cancer memoir.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0990843344
Page Count: 332
Publisher: Templeworks Properties
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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