Brings one of the most pivotal figures in 20th-century literature brilliantly to life. (25 b&w photos, not seen....
From Atlanta Journal-Constitution editor and critic Boyd, a definitive biography of the groundbreaking novelist, playwright, and anthropologist.
When she died in 1960 at the age of 69, Zora Neale Hurston was buried in an unmarked grave, and all of her books were out of print. Since then, however, her literary stock has only risen. Her 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is now recognized as a classic of African-American and feminist literature, and many contemporary black writers have come to regard her as a sort of literary godmother. Ups and downs such as these are typical of Hurston's life. Born in Alabama and raised in the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida, she left home as a teenager, working a variety of odd jobs before eventually ending up in New York City. She attended Barnard (the college's only black student) and became a protégé of pioneering anthropologist Franz Boas. She was also to become one of the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance, many of whose major figures appear herein, including Langston Hughes (with whom she occasionally collaborated), Countee Cullen, and Carl Van Vechten. After winning a Guggenheim grant, she traveled extensively throughout the American South and to Jamaica and Haiti, collecting stories and observing folk customs. Even so, much about her life is unknown or obscure, and even her close friends admitted she was a difficult woman to know, which makes first-time author Boyd's achievement all that more impressive. He vividly evokes Hurston's life, dispelling many of the myths that have grown up about her along the way. Boyd writes knowledgeably and gracefully, putting into perspective Hurston's considerable achievements both as a literary figure and as a social scientist.
Brings one of the most pivotal figures in 20th-century literature brilliantly to life. (25 b&w photos, not seen. Published in conjunction with the annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities in Eatonville, Florida.)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2003
ISBN: 0-684-84230-0
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
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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