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14 Nov 2020 05:47:53 UTC
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26788
Author: Zadie Smith
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Amazon.com ReviewWhen Alex-Li Tandem is 12 years old, his father takes him and his friends Adam and Rubinfine to a wrestling match at the Albert Hall in London. By the end of the evening, the pivotal events of Alex-Lis youth have occurred he has met Joseph Klein, a boy whose fascination with autographs proves infectious his friendships with Adam and Rubinfine are cemented and his father has dropped dead. This is enough action for an entire book, and in fact things slow down dramatically after page 35 of Zadie Smiths sophomore novel The Autograph Man. When we meet Alex again, he is a grown man, an autograph dealer and devoted slacker, suffering the physical and spiritual after-effects of a three-day romance with a drug called Superstar. While under its malign influence, Alex has managed to wreck his sports car, alienate his girlfriend Esther, and--possibly--forge the rare autograph of his idol, the 1950s movie star Kitty Alexander. Will his friends save him from the embarrassment of trying to sell this suspect autograph? Will they pull him together in time to perform Kaddish on the 15th anniversary of his fathers death? Although not as enthralling or politically resonant as White Teeth, Smiths hallowed debut, The Autograph Man amply demonstrates her ability to juggle several main characters, several themes, and a host of plots and subplots, with the occasional purely comic episode thrown up in the air beside them like a chainsaw or a cheesecake. Readers will want to step away to a safe distance during the chaotic final scenes. --Regina MarlerFrom Publishers WeeklySmiths eagerly awaited second novel begins with a bang, but rapidly loses momentum, slipping from tragicomedy to rather overdetermined farce. The introductory set piece is panoramically sock-o in the best Martin Amis tradition, taking us from Doctor Li-Jin Tandems outing with his sons friends to see a wrestling match in Albert Hall to his sudden death from a massive stroke. Fifteen years to the week later, Li-Jins son, Alex, is being pressed by his friends, Adams Jacobs and Joseph Klein, to say Kaddish for his dad. Alex is an autograph trader and obsessive egotist. Over the course of the week, he wrecks his car on an acid trip, goes to New York in quest of the legendary retired actress Kitty Alexander, frees her from her mad manager (who promptly announces her death to the papers, thus inflating the value of her signature) and gets his girlfriend Esther, Adams sister, angry enough that she suspends their relationship. Smith paints portraits of a very multiculti Judaism Adam, for instance, is a black Jew, while Alex is a disbelieving Chinese one. Adams kabbalistic interests are supposed to operate in Smiths text the way Homers poem operated in Ulysses, giving it a mythic dimension, but the big theme of Jewishness feels tacked on, like a marquee advertising a former attraction. Smiths pen portraits of the shabby, yobbish autograph trading circle are intermittently funny, but her prose is so busy being clever that the laughter never builds. This is disappointing but, even with its faults, the novel points to a literary talent of a high order. 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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27865
Author: Bandy X. Lee
File Type: epub
The New York Times bestseller! More than two dozen psychiatrists and psychologists offer their consensus view that Trumps mental state presents a clear and present danger to our nation and individual well-being. This is not normal. Since the start of Donald Trumps presidential run, one question has quietly but urgently permeated the observations of concerned citizens What is wrong with him? Constrained by the American Psychiatric Associations Goldwater rule, which inhibits mental health professionals from diagnosing public figures they have not personally examined, many of those qualified to answer this question have shied away from discussing the issue at all. The public has thus been left to wonder whether he is mad, bad, or both. In THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP, twenty-seven psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health experts argue that, in Mr. Trumps case, their moral and civic duty to warn America supersedes professional neutrality. They then explore Trumps symptoms and potentially relevant diagnoses to find a complex, if also dangerously mad, man. Philip Zimbardo and Rosemary Sword, for instance, explain Trumps impulsivity in terms of unbridled and extreme present hedonism. Craig Malkin writes on pathological narcissism and politics as a lethal mix. Gail Sheehy, on a lack of trust that exceeds paranoia. Lance Dodes, on sociopathy. Robert Jay Lifton, on the malignant normality that can set in everyday life if psychiatrists do not speak up. His madness is catching, too. From the trauma people have experienced under the Trump administration to the cult-like characteristics of his followers, he has created unprecedented mental health consequences across our nation and beyond. Its not all in our heads. Its in his. There will not be a book published this fall more urgent, important, or controversial than The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump...profound, illuminating and discomforting Bill Moyers **Review This is an historic work in the history of American psychiatry. We have never been in this place before. Lawrence ODonnell There will not be a book published this fall more urgent, important, or controversial than The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump...profound, illuminating and discomforting Bill Moyers The stand these psychiatrists are taking takes courage, and their conclusions are compelling. The Washington Post When I first heard about the conference that gave rise to this book at Yale, I was worried that a manifesto would come out with a diagnosis. That is not what happened what happened is a very thoughtful assessment based on lots of public data, which gives us a very clear way of thinking about the terrific vulnerabilities of our current president that elicits a duty to warn. - Samuel Barondes, Professor Emeritus and Former Chair of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco This insightful collection is a valuable primary source documenting the critical turning point when American psychiatry reassessed the ethics of restraining commentary on the mental health of public officials in light of the duty to warn of imminent danger. - Estelle Freedman, the Robinson Professor in U.S. History at Stanford University About the Author Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div., is Assistant Clinical Professor in Law and Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. She earned her degrees at Yale, interned at Bellevue, was Chief Resident at Mass General, and was a Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School. She was also a Fellow of the National Institute of Mental Health. She worked in several maximum-security prisons, cofounded Yales Violence and Health Study Group, and leads a violence prevention collaborators group for the World Health Organization. Shes written more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters, edited nine academic books, and is author of the textbook Violence.
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Created
1 month ago
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application/epub+zip
English