You don’t need to be black or a minority to grasp the need to stand up and fight in today’s political world. The authors lay...
The fascinating story of four women who got into politics in the 1960s and ’70s and are now the rare Washington insiders who understand people from all areas of the nation.
The authors—Brazile (Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House, 2017), a Democratic political strategist and TV commentator; Caraway, a public relations executive and Democratic strategist; Daughtry, a preacher, organizer, and CEO of the 2008 and 2016 Democratic National Conventions; and Moore, a former assistant to Bill Clinton—all came from different parts of the country but had in common strong family upbringings and a devotion to civil rights. The list of their mentors is an all-star cast: Ron Brown, Oprah Winfrey, Maria Shriver, Vernon Jordan, and the Rev. Willie Barrow. Each author remembers vividly the first time she met Jesse Jackson; Brazile worked on his first presidential campaign. Caraway has held key leadership roles in nearly every major presidential campaign of the past couple decades. Daughtry was CEO of the DNC, twice. Moore served in Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition and became director of political affairs at the White House. They shared their lives as true friends, weathering setbacks, disagreements, and breaks but always trusting each other. Their individual strengths increase significantly when they’re together, as they were during the 2004 election. Washington power brokers regularly host informal dinners for presidential hopefuls, and the authors decided to do the same. The rules were simple: The candidate would come alone, be responsible for the bill, and everything was off the record. The dinners would include the candidate, the four women, and some of their associates—though the meals with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were jam-packed. The authors’ description of the professionalism and political savvy exhibited and/or lacking at those meals is eye-opening.
You don’t need to be black or a minority to grasp the need to stand up and fight in today’s political world. The authors lay it out well in this solid primer on how to “dare to enter the halls of power.”Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-13771-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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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