“I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.Ītlantic senior writer Coates ( The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “Yet there is no other way to live.”Ī moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. 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. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. 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. “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. 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. Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. (16 pages photos not seen)Ī neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer. The dual dangers of this book are that some readers will find tacit support for their beliefs that blacks are easily led and others will view the Klan as ``not all that bad'' and perhaps join where they otherwise might not have. Finally, he endlessly makes excuses for Klan members who are no longer violent, as if this somehow mitigates their continued membership in such a terrorist organization. Indeed, the anti-Semitism of the KKK is a massive blind spot for Davis. In another truly offensive scene, Davis visits the National Holocaust Museum, where he interviews several luminaries on the hate scene who are protesting the museum but neglects to mention their purpose-the protesters deny the Holocaust took place. Nowhere during these scenes does the author consider that his book might be the perfect vehicle by which Kelly can gain new members. In the most ridiculous case, Kelly names Davis godfather to his newborn daughter. For instance, Roger Kelly, who is still active in the KKK, is depicted as a white ``separatist'' as opposed to a white ``supremacist.'' Davis seems oblivious to Kelly's smooth way of talking out of both sides of his mouth and casts him as a victim in an episode of ``reverse discrimination'' at Howard University, where Kelly is denied entrance to a talk show on racist groups. What never occurs to Davis is that he may be being used by these people. Surprisingly, Davis is able to form friendships with some of the racists he meets-or so it would seem. When a friend of his says he is joining the Ku Klux Klan, Davis approaches a few local heavies hoping to find ``common ground'' on which they can stand. Grammy-winning musician Davis gets taken for a ride by the KKK in this futile and pointless volume.
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