When the Worst That Can Happen Already Has: Conquering Life's Most Difficult Times - Hardcover

Wholey, Dennis

3.8

5 ratings by Goodreads

9781562829858: When the Worst That Can Happen Already Has: Conquering Life's Most Difficult Times

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1562829858 ISBN 13: 9781562829858

Publisher: Hyperion, 1992

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A guide to coping with the worst that life has to offer combines advice from such survivors as Jim Brady, Betty Ford, and Larry King with a down-to-earth philosophy of enduring life's hardships. By the author of The Courage to Change. Tour.

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From Kirkus Reviews:

Interviews with numerous individuals, many of them celebrities, on how they have coped with adversity. Interviewer Wholey, former host of PBS's Late Night America and author of Are You Happy? (1986) and The Courage to Change (1984)--which used celebrity interviews to explore happiness and alcohol, respectively--has edited out his questions here, believing they would intrude on the ``truly inspirational'' stories his subjects have to tell. The result, though, is an often curiously flat narration of some absolutely awful personal experiences--incarceration in Auschwitz and Dachau, devastating illnesses, disfiguring and disabling accidents, etc. Among the celebrities who speak with Wholey are Jim Brady, brain-damaged in John Hinkley's assassination attempt on President Reagan, and Betty Ford, who has faced both cancer and drug addiction. Wholey also talks with Robert Bork, who lost his bid for a Supreme Court seat; former American Univ. president Richard Berendzen, who faced disgrace after making indecent telephone calls; and Nixon advisor Charles Colson, sent to prison during the Watergate investigation. The author's arrangement of his subjects' stories into such categories as ``Suffering,'' ``Loss,'' ``Attitude,'' and ``Acceptance'' appears somewhat arbitrary but does give him room, in brief introductions, to insert his own insights into facing personal disaster. The penultimate section, ``Support and Wisdom,'' excerpts comments from various interviews and intends to be morale-boosting, while the last section, ``Final Thoughts,'' could have been called ``Random Thoughts''--it contains brief pieces by assorted experts on AIDS, the rights of the disabled, and the hospice movement, as well as an unfocused essay by Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan. Even with the celebrity gloss, essentially uninspired and uninspiring. -- Copyright �1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal:

Hardship and misfortune are part of human life, and the resulting physical or emotional pain may seem unbearable at times. This collection of interviews focuses on the personal stories of 50 individuals who have experienced great adversity and have courageously overcome it. The interviews, presented as short essays and prefaced by the author's succinct comments, focus on such hardships as physical handicap, divorce, addiction, disease, and the death of loved ones. Some of those profiled are well-known personalities (Jim Brady, Betty Ford), but most are individuals whose stories are not widely known (a war widow, a handicapped dentist, an AIDS patient). They provide inspiring role models of people who have grown stronger and more caring by turning misfortune into an opportunity for positive growth. An inspirational and beneficial resource for those in pain, and a thought-provoking book for those whose minor problems loom large.
- Ilse Heidmann Ali, formerly with Motlow State Community Coll., Tullahoma, Tenn.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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