Stories of creation and destruction told in an informed and compassionate voice.
A detailed, inspiring, and horrifying account of the restaurant that sat atop the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Former Premiere senior editor Roston (I Lost It at the Video Store: A Filmmakers' Oral History of a Vanished Era, 2015) returns with a rich, complex account of Windows on the World, a story the author begins by discussing the many immigrants who worked there—later, he includes one of Donald Trump’s many clueless comments about 9/11. However, politics is much in the background; in the foreground are the many stories of the founders of the restaurant, the local politics (e.g., dealing with the Port Authority, the organization that controlled the site), key workers in the restaurant, the amenities, and the menus. He also chronicles the fundamental changes that occurred after the Feb. 26, 1993, truck-bomb episode. Informed by more than 125 interviews, the text is most impressive for its accounts of the human relationships involved, both the friendships and the fiery competitions among some of the managers. Emerging above all is Joe Baum, the restaurateur, who, writes Roston, “could electrify or freeze a room, depending on his mood.” Baum and his colleagues faced significant challenges in the space. For example, they were not allowed to use natural gas and had to use electricity (which most all disdained) and a charcoal pit, and they were dealing with a rough economy in the mid-1970s. Eventually, however, the restaurant grossed enormous sums and became a New York City institution. Roston concludes with some very painful chapters about 9/11: the day before, the day of, the days after. All who were in the restaurant died that day; there was no escape from the floors above the impact. As the author grimly reminds us, many on the doomed upper floors jumped, preferring that to incineration.
Stories of creation and destruction told in an informed and compassionate voice.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3799-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 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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