A quick, efficient job of fairly sketching this extraordinary life.
An admiring defense of the new pope, who is not afraid to shake things up.
A British journalist and co-founder of the worldwide media project Catholic Voices, Ivereigh brushes aside any “false idea” that the former Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (b. 1936) ever held conservative views and takes great pains to show he has been a lifelong reformer. When he was ordained a priest in 1969 at the age of 32, Bergoglio was deeply influenced by the reforms instigated by the Second Vatican Council. Moreover, as a young priest, Bergoglio fused important relationships with formative political currents of the day, such as Marxism and Peronism—e.g., he gave “spiritual support” at Salvador University in Buenos Aires to leaders of the Guardia de Hierro (“Iron Guard”), which advocated for the original worker-based Peronist platform. Ivereigh insists that Bergoglio’s sympathy for the “popular values of the pueblo fiel did not make him a party activist.” During the so-called Dirty War in Argentina of the late 1970s, many close to the priest were “disappeared,” and the author asserts that Bergoglio actively worked to protect the victims and fellow Jesuits, contrary to the barbs launched by Horacio Verbitsky in his book El Silencio. Yet Ivereigh also notes Bergoglio’s ability to “play his cards very close to his chest.” Always eager to put forth a pastoral rather than ideological approach, Bergoglio is a deeply intuitive and well-read teacher, constantly warning against “worldliness” and increasingly attuned to charismatic spirituality. The author maintains that Bergoglio is a master of forging consensus—e.g., in the wrangling over the Argentinian same-sex legislation of 2010; he officially denounced it but left open a possibility of “revising and extending the concept of civil unions.” Elected to the papacy in February 2013, Francis promises to continue forging his particular brand of humility and resoluteness.
A quick, efficient job of fairly sketching this extraordinary life.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1627791571
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
PROFILES
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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