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THE LAST OF THE WALLENDAS

High-sighing story of the great high-wire artists, told by the granddaughter of legendary trapeze-artist Karl Wallenda and by journalist DeVincentis-Hayes (People, Redbook, etc.). Now that the Wallendas have dwindled down to a precious few, the remaining legally named Wallendas have wrangled with the author about her use of the Wallenda name in her high-wire act—for her mother was Wallenda's child by a woman he married after a Mexican divorce from his first wife, a divorce that the US failed to recognize. ``I walk the wire because it's in my blood,'' she says, and, with several thrilling moments, her story shows just how and why high-wire walking gets into your blood if you're a Wallenda. Leader of the pack was grandfather Karl, who insisted on topping himself with ever more dangerous acts. He seems to have been his own worst enemy, harboring one great dream: to skywalk Niagara Falls. But New York State doesn't allow high-wire acts without a net, so Karl invented the seven-man pyramid, in which six men form a pyramid with a woman sitting in a chair on top—an act so dangerous that no one else on earth dared do it. The Wallendas handled it safely for 16 years until, one day in Detroit, the strain overcame one member, leaving two dead and one paralyzed. But Karl survived and soon was back building the pyramid: Courage is all to the Wallendas. Fate caught up with him in Puerto Rico, however, when a poorly guyed wire and heavy winds toppled him from a skywalk between two tall buildings. The young author, meanwhile, had been taught by Karl and became the first woman skywalker, successfully walking the very wire that killed her grandfather. Circus lore—with suicides, bigamy, insanity and so on—fills in the family history. A strong, if downbeat, read. (Photographs) (First printing of 20,000)

Pub Date: April 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-88282-116-4

Page Count: 267

Publisher: New Horizon

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993

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NIGHT

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. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

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

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

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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