If only the “wrath of Michelle,” as it’s known, is the worst thing the staffers have to face. It’s not, though, and Kantor’s...
A gossipy but mostly meaty look inside the Obama White House, a place less unified than one might expect—or hope.
New York Times Washington correspondent Kantor graduated to that position from the Arts & Leisure section, and it shows in her fascination with First Lady Michelle Obama’s fashion sense, about which we read a great deal, good and bad—good that Mrs. Obama has a fashion sense, bad in the sense that expensive clothing in a time of economic hardship gives the president’s enemies more fodder for complaining. Thus, after the midterms, “she still wore plenty of expensive labels, including designer gowns to formal evening events, but during the day there were more dresses from chain stores.” No one could complain about a $34.95 dress, after all—though of course they could, since a vigorous anti-Obama contingent in Washington is doing all it can to keep the president from fulfilling his ambitions and finds fault in everything he does. Here Sen. Mitch McConnell becomes a notable heavy of the piece. The best parts of Kantor’s book depict a White House beleaguered and harassed, a leader frustrated at being kept from pursuing what he had hoped would be a “post-partisan” style of governance. The book has already made news for its depiction of Mrs. Obama as a tough manager with a reputation for frostiness and impatience: “My staff worries a lot more about what the first lady thinks than they worry about what I think,” she reports President Obama as saying by way of a lead-in to some memorable conflicts with the likes of Robert Gibbs and Rahm Emanuel. Yet, given both Michelle Obama’s misgivings about the toll of political life on her family and the siege-fortress mood of the White House, her protective and decisive demeanor seems entirely understandable, especially given the president’s complementary “elusive, introverted” manner.
If only the “wrath of Michelle,” as it’s known, is the worst thing the staffers have to face. It’s not, though, and Kantor’s fly-on-the-wall view makes illuminating reading for an election year.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-09875-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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