Just to be alive is a grand thing," and Agatha Miller Christie Mallowan was alive for 85 years, the first 75 of which are recalled in this candid (to a point), devourable (utterly), and cheering autobiography—a memory book so buoyantly free of either artistic pretense or commercial imperative that the reading becomes, like the writing, "an indulgence." With the first glimpse of Hercule Poirot not appearing till halfway along, the emphasis is on childhood—perhaps the last record of a Victorian childhood that we'll have and certainly one of the rosiest. Christmas Dinners, boiled sweets, bathing machines, the thrill of fruit-patterned dessert plates, proper coconut shies, hoops, buttercups, and cream—Christie draws you in to the flush of remembering as she revels in the "art of leisure," an art crystallized in her Torquay home until Father's health and American income gave way simultaneously. Then the "art of flirting," practiced in colonial Cairo (cheaper there), where the tall girl with the full dance programme was returned to her mother with: "She dances beautifully. You had better teach her to talk now." Abandoning a career as either a pianist (too nervous) or singer (too weakvoiced), Agatha eagerly accepted her fifth proposal—subaltern Archie Christie—and plunged into V.A.D. work—"human towel rail," dispenser of Bip's paste and poisons—when Archie went to war. With Armistice: motherhood, flathunting, nanny-hunting. . . and a book called The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written on a dare (sister Madge was the talented one, Agatha "the slow one) and resulting in a first-year profit of 25 pounds. "I was a married woman, that was my status, and that was my occupation," and nothing changed that—not even landslides of royalties or the shock of her "ruthless" husband's demand for divorce. Christie omits the amnesia disappearance sensation of 1928 (making her "revulsion against the press" seem sudden and unwarranted), moving briskly on to a second wind—as plucky solo traveler in "Mem-Sahib Land," where archaeologist Max Mallowan (thirteen years younger) wooed her with mild-mannered ardor. Whether musing on her "unsatisfactory" brother ("He would certainly have been all right if he had been born Ludwig II of Bavaria") or out on a dig or decorating houses or pondering capital punishment, Dame Agatha is eager to smile, advise, draw morals, see both sides, and hope for the best. And the many fans who've hoped for the best from this last legacy will not be disappointed: they, along with readers who've never cared for whodunits, will find this year's Christie for Christmas an irresistible forget-me-not from a "tradesman in a good honest trade" who made the most of her talent and her time.
Pub Date: Nov. 14, 1977
ISBN: 0007314663
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1977
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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