With stroke-by-stroke miniature portraits and incantatory prose, Pulitzer Prize winner Kidder beautifully limns the characters and values that shape one New England town. Northampton, Mass. (pop.: 30,000) is a postcard-perfect community dating back to the 17th century, with rustic farms, Smith College, and a trendy downtown. One-time residents such as Jonathan Edwards, Sojourner Truth, and Calvin Coolidge gave rise to a largely Yankee tradition of moral uplift. Newcomers—including immigrants, the homeless, students, lesbians, and small-fry criminals—have complicated this social fabric without tearing it. Within this small city, Kidder finds, is an inextricable web of relationships, held together by a “tradition of secularized virtue that fed on dreams of ideal places.” As with The Soul of a New Machine (1981), Among Schoolchildren (1989), and House (1985), Kidder focuses on representative individuals, including a compassionate judge, a female mayor fretting over her budget, a young single mother trying to support her son and survive Smith College, and a real estate lawyer returning to the world after suffering from obsessive/compulsive disorder. His main character, however, is Tommy O’Connor, a 33-year-old cop born and raised in the town he now patrols with tough love. Adhering to a simple but strong moral code and a fierce sense of place, Tommy faces two dilemmas that will define his future. First, will he testify against a fellow cop and lifelong friend up on child molestation charges? And will he leave the police department, the job he coveted since childhood, to join the FBI? Through these people, Kidder conveys the appeal of —a place with a life that shelters individual lives” and the longing to escape its smothering embrace. A microcosm of how the traditional American “city on a hill” looks near the year 2000—all rendered in a classically graceful style as good as it gets. (First printing of 100,000; first serial to the Atlantic Monthly; Book-of-the-Month Club selection; author tour)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-679-45588-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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
An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.
An analysis of our emotions and the skills required to understand them.
We all have emotions, but how many of us have the vocabulary to accurately describe our experiences or to understand how our emotions affect the way we act? In this guide to help readers with their emotions, Brackett, the founding director of Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence, presents a five-step method he calls R.U.L.E.R.: We need to recognize our emotions, understand what has caused them, be able to label them with precise terms and descriptions, know how to safely and effectively express them, and be able to regulate them in productive ways. The author walks readers through each step and provides an intriguing tool to use to help identify a specific emotion. Brackett introduces a four-square grid called a Mood Meter, which allows one to define where an emotion falls based on pleasantness and energy. He also uses four colors for each quadrant: yellow for high pleasantness and high energy, red for low pleasantness and high energy, green for high pleasantness and low energy, and blue for low pleasantness and low energy. The idea is to identify where an emotion lies in this grid in order to put the R.U.L.E.R. method to good use. The author’s research is wide-ranging, and his interweaving of his personal story with the data helps make the book less academic and more accessible to general readers. It’s particularly useful for parents and teachers who want to help children learn to handle difficult emotions so that they can thrive rather than be overwhelmed by them. The author’s system will also find use in the workplace. “Emotions are the most powerful force inside the workplace—as they are in every human endeavor,” writes Brackett. “They influence everything from leadership effectiveness to building and maintaining complex relationships, from innovation to customer relations.”
An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-21284-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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