Solid and well written: the authors reveal a little-known aspect of WWII on the home front and abroad.
A spirited account of the storied all-black tank battalion, one of the most highly decorated units in WWII.
Basketball great Abdul-Jabbar (A Season on the Reservation, 2000, etc.) and journalist Walton (Mississippi, 1996) honor what was officially known as the “761st Tank Battalion (Colored),” one of several “floating entities designed to be attached to an Army corps; the corps, in turn, would attach them to whichever of its component divisions most needed their specialized services at a given moment.” Many African-American units trained for combat but did not see it, the training having been a sop to “insure the black community’s support for the war effort”; poorly used and treated—the men assigned to the unit were stranded in a Louisiana forest, dumped there by a troop train miles from their destination—the men of the 761st had to battle prejudice at home before even seeing foreign combat. (Even its white officers referred to them as “Mrs. Roosevelt’s Niggers.”) One high point of this narrative is the resistance to this prejudice on the part of several members of the 761st, including, famously, Lt. Jackie Robinson, whose refusal to move to the back of a bus is rendered here in straightforward, unbowdlerized prose guaranteed to induce the reader’s indignation. There are many other high points as well, as the authors skillfully introduce their subjects to the battlefields of France, where the 761st spearheaded a spectacular drive on the Saar, led by Gen. George S. Patton, that “may have come to be viewed as equal in significance [to] the invasion of Normandy” had not the German counteroffensive at the Battle of the Bulge overshadowed it. Badly bloodied at the Saar, the 761st turned toward the Bulge, helped relieve Bastogne, and earned a Presidential Unit Citation for valor, along with just about every other medal that could be bestowed.
Solid and well written: the authors reveal a little-known aspect of WWII on the home front and abroad.Pub Date: May 4, 2004
ISBN: 0-385-50338-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2004
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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