An honest and eloquent look at life from someone who has lost two of her senses.
One woman's story of gradually losing her sight and hearing.
From the age of 12, Alexander knew her life was going to change. Born with two recessive genes that cause type-III Usher syndrome, the author was told she would experience the gradual loss of her hearing and sight until she would be completely blind and deaf. With honesty and compassion, she details the slow, steady progression of her disease even as she tried to hide her disabilities from her friends, boyfriends and co-workers. Realizing that her world was narrowing, Alexander excelled in school, played soccer and delivered meals to HIV/AIDs patients. However, she continued to deny she had any physical ailments. Then, just after high school graduation, calamity struck. Drunk and nearly blind in the dark, Alexander stumbled off her balcony, landing 27 feet below on a stone patio; she broke every limb in her body except her right foot and leg. Multiple surgeries and months of physical therapy forced Alexander to make conscious decisions about her future. After attending the University of Michigan, she moved to New York City and attended Columbia, double majoring in social work and public health. She became a spin instructor, fell in and out of love, and continued to assess the pros and cons of her disabilities. She could shut out the never-ending sounds of the city by removing her hearing aids, but then she could no longer hear a person whisper in her ear. She couldn't really see the stars, but she loved the feel of a person signing into her hands in the dark. As she steadily accepted her fate, Alexander emphasized the importance of embracing the here and now, of being present and grateful for the gift of life, in whatever shape it might take.
An honest and eloquent look at life from someone who has lost two of her senses.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59240-831-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Gotham Books
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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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