NATIONAL BESTSELLER Julie Holland thought she knew what crazy was. Then she cameto Bellevue. For nine eventful years, Dr. Holland was the weekendphysician in charge of the psychiatric emergency room at New YorkCity’s Bellevue Hospital. In this absorbing memoir, Hollandrecounts stories from her vast case files that are alternatelyterrifying, tragically comic, and profoundly moving: the serialkiller, the naked man barking like a dog in Times Square, theschizophrenic begging for an injection of club soda to quiet thevoices in his head, the subway conductor who watched a young womanpushed into the path of his train. Writing with uncommon candor, Holland supplies not only apage-turner with all the fast-paced immediacy of a TV medical dramabut also a fascinating glimpse into the inner lives of doctors whostruggle to maintain perspective in a world where sanity is in theeye of the beholder.
When Anne Rice stopped crafting stories about vampires andbegan writing about Jesus, many of her fans were shocked. Thisautobiographical spiritual memoir provides an account of how theauthor rediscovered and fully embraced her Catholic faith afterdecades as a self-proclaimed atheist. Rice begins with herchildhood in New Orleans, when she seriously considered entering aconvent. As she grows into a young adult she delves into concernsabout faith, God and the Catholic Church that lead her away fromreligion. The author finally reclaims her Catholic faith in thelate 1990s, describing it as a movement toward total surrender toGod. She writes beautifully about how through clouds of doubt andpain she finds clarity, realizing how much she loved God anddesired to surrender her being, including her writing talent, toGod. Covering such a large sequence of time and life events is noteasy, and some of the author's transitions are a bit jarring. Fansof Rice's earlier works will enjoy discovering more about her lifean
A breakaway bestseller since its first printing, AllSouls takes us deep into Michael Patrick MacDonald's Southie,the proudly insular neighborhood with the highest concentration ofwhite poverty in America. Rocked by Whitey Bulger's crime schemesand busing riots, MacDonald's Southie is populated by sharply hewncharacters like his Ma, a miniskirted, accordion-playing singlemother who endures the deaths of four of her eleven children.Nearly suffocated by his grief and his community's code of silence,MacDonald tells his family story here with gritty but movinghonesty.
MARVELOUS . . . BREATHTAKING. --The New York Times Book Review "MAILER SHINES . . . Explaining Kennedy's assassination throughthe flaws in Oswald's character has been attempted before, notablyby Gerald Posner in Case Closed and Don Delillo in Libra. Butneither handled Oswald with the kind of dexterity and literaryimagination that Mailer here supplies in great force. . . .Oswald's Tale weaves a story not only about Oswald or Kennedy'sdeath but about the culture surrounding the assassination, one thatremains replete with miscomprehensions, unraveled threads and lackof resolution: All of which makes Oswald's Tale more true-to-lifethan any fact-driven treatise could hope to be. . . . VintageMailer." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "FASCINATING . . . A MASTER STORYTELLER . . . Mailer gives us ourclearest, deepest view of Oswald yet. . . . Inside three pages youare utterly absorbed." --Detroit Free Press "MAILER AT HIS BEST . . . LIVELY AND CONVINCING . . .EXTREMELY LUCI
Contributors include Harold Bloom, Jules Feiffer, John Guare,Norman Mailer, Peter Matthiessen, Maggie Paley, Richard Price,James Salter, Robert Silvers, William Styron, Gay Talese, CalvinTrillin, Gore Vidal, and 200 other Plimpton intimates Norman Mailer said that George Plimpton was the best-loved man inNew York. This book is the party that was George’s life–and it’s abig one–attended by scores of famous people, as well aslesser-known intimates and acquaintances. They talk about his life:its privileged beginnings, its wild and triumphant middle, itsbrave, sad end. They say that George was a man of many parts: the“last gentleman,” founder and first editor of The ParisReview, the graceful writer who brought the NewJournalism to sports, and Everyman’s proxy boxer,trapeze artist, stand-up comic, Western movie villain, and Playboy centerfold photographer. George’s last years were awesome, truly so. His greatest gift wasto be a blessing to others–not all, truth be told–and that giften
In the most inspiring speech of his career, Ted Kennedy oncevowed: "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the workgoes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dreamshall never die." Unlike his martyred brothers, John and Robert, whose lives werecut off before the promise of a better future could be realized,Ted lived long enough to make many promises come true. During acareer that spanned an astonishing half-century, he put his imprinton every major piece of progressive legislation–from health careand education to civil rights.
