As essential as any political biography is likely to be.
The third of a projected five-volume political biography, this one dealing robustly with Lincoln’s political ascent, ending with his election to the presidency in 1860.
Blumenthal—who has served as a senior adviser to both Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Washington editor for the New Yorker—has published two earlier volumes in his series (Wrestling With His Angel, 2017, etc.). Here, the author continues to establish himself as the definitive chronicler of Lincoln’s political career. The years 1856-1860 were tumultuous ones in American history, and Blumenthal astutely examines many seminal events: slavery’s fracture of the country, the 1856 assault on Sen. Charles Sumner, the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown’s deadly attacks at Pottawatomie Creek, 1856, and Harpers Ferry, 1859, Lincoln’s transformative Cooper Union speech in 1860. Some crucial characters appear throughout, including Frederick Douglass, Emerson and Thoreau, Dred Scott, and John Wilkes Booth, who was present at Brown’s hanging and at some of Stephen A. Douglas’ presidential campaign appearances. Some facts will surprise readers with only a modest knowledge of Lincoln. For example, he didn’t like to be called “Abe” (he preferred “Lincoln”); listeners were sometimes put off by his voice, which could be high and squeaky; and he was masterful behind the scenes of his campaigns—he was, Blumenthal reminds us continually, a politician. Some will probably be surprised to learn that he did not leave his home in Springfield during the entire campaign and that he received less than 40 percent of the popular vote. The Democratic Party had split—North and South—thus assuring Lincoln’s victory. Blumenthal’s explorations of all of these elements are stunningly thorough, both wide-angled and microscopic. He quotes from newspapers, books, speeches, congressional transcripts, and numerous other sources. At the beginning, he includes a timeline of major events and cast of major characters.
As essential as any political biography is likely to be.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4767-7728-3
Page Count: 784
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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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