Well-wrought life of the woman who was not only—in the words of a New York Times editorial published on the occasion of her death, in 1948 at age 73—``the spirit that held [the Rockefellers] together'' but whose role in the handling of the family wealth was ``a fortunate thing for society, for this country, and for the world.'' Kert (The Hemingway Women, 1983), despite all her exhaustive research, happily lets her subject retain all of her formidable vitality and independence—characteristics that her husband, the psychologically repressed and romantic loner John D. Rockefeller, Jr., both admired and occasionally sought to curtail. Born in Providence into the distinguished Aldrich family, Abby grew up in a household dominated by her father's career as a US senator. Part of each year was spent in Washington, where Abby often acted as hostess when her ailing mother was indisposed. The Aldriches were lively, outgoing, and irreverent; the Rockefellers pious, reserved, and cautious, especially John, who fell in love with Abby while a student at Brown. These differences irrevocably shaped the marriage: While John adored Abby, always sought her counsel, and supported her involvement in so many issues—though he only reluctantly accepted her role as founder of the Museum of Modern Art—he resented the demands that their children and society made on her. Abby, a remarkably intuitive and sensitive woman, learned how to handle John's resentment, though at some personal cost. Kert deals not only with the couple's marriage—which was, in spite of some strains, a lifelong love affair—and the six Rockefeller children, but also with Abby's generous contributions to art, education, and politics, as well with as her role in creating Rockefeller Center and Colonial Williamsburg. A splendidly intelligent, very readable portrait of a woman who was as wise in the rearing of her family as in the spending of her great wealth. (Forty b&w photos—not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-394-56975-X
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1993
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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