A vibrant, interesting book marred by an overabundance of detail and an overreliance on cosmic signs taken for predestined...
A TV and film producer’s memoir of a rich life lived as an American expatriate in Britain and Kenya and of the remarkable relationship she had with her son, photojournalist Dan Eldon.
As a child, Iowa native Eldon often dreamed of “flying away and exploring the world.” She got her wish not long after graduating from college when she married an English businessman and went to live with him in late-1960s London. But it quickly became evident to her that a life of dull domesticity would not allow her to help other people. All that changed after her husband was transferred to Nairobi in 1977. Eldon embarked on a magnificent adventure in a land that not only captivated her heart but also awakened a deep inner restlessness. She educated herself about Kenya and its people, went on safaris and met extraordinary artists and intellectuals, including several members of the brilliant Leakey family. Eager to be more than just another “bored” wife, she began writing articles about everything from Kenyan food and politics to visiting celebrities like psychic Sylvia Browne, who started Eldon on a lifelong metaphysical quest for truth. She also encouraged her gifted son to express himself through art and, later, photography. Self-enlightenment brought increasing professional recognition and success but ended her marriage and nearly destroyed her. She returned to England, where she found a career mentor in distinguished film producer Geoffrey Dudman. Meanwhile, her son began his brief but brilliant career as a humanitarian and photojournalist. Eerily enough, his tragic death at age 22 fulfilled a psychic prediction that she would find her purpose in finishing the work another had begun.
A vibrant, interesting book marred by an overabundance of detail and an overreliance on cosmic signs taken for predestined wonders.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-204862-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
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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