A vivid, honest portrait of an imperfect but intrepid mid-20th-century American family.
Debut author Albert recalls her brief time in Nigeria as the only child of a father who was lured to British colonial Africa and a mother who reluctantly went along for the ride.
Like so many tales of misadventure, this one begins at the end; it’s a stock technique, but it works for this sentimental, thoughtful memoir. In March 1953, after spending the night in a Kano, Nigeria, jail, Albert’s father secured his release despite his debtor’s wishes—just in time to get himself, his wife, Josie, and their 10-year-old daughter (the author) on the first flight to London. Two years before, Albert’s father, disillusioned by his career in law, decided to uproot the family from their cozy existence in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights in Queens, New York, and become an exporter of lead ore. From the outset, Albert deftly illustrates her portrait of her father as a restless, self-serving man who was convinced that exporting ore from Nigeria would fulfill his greatest desire: to become a wealthy man. On the way to Africa, Albert’s parents casually dumped her off at an English boarding school, not unlike the one that George Orwell wrote about in his autobiographical essay, “Such, Such Were the Joys.” Albert would hear little from her parents, and it wasn’t until five months later that they brought her to Nigeria. The author reconstructs the family’s remaining year and a half there, most of it spent in the city of Jos, using letters between her mother and aunt, and her father and uncle. Each one is rich with details of the family’s daily life in the city; Albert’s father’s calamitous trade and mining negotiations with European-weary village chiefs; and both parents’ emotional struggles with expatriate existence and ultimate financial failure. Yet Albert also infuses the narrative with a deep love and admiration for her parents, which results in deliciously complex portraits. The book could have done without a handful of vague references to “Africans” instead of “Nigerians,” but for the most part, Albert remains vigilant regarding the fraught social atmosphere of colonial Africa.
A vivid, honest portrait of an imperfect but intrepid mid-20th-century American family.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-5006-9476-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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