Creatively and entertainingly written family memoir.
Seymour (The Bugatti Queen: In Search of a Motor-Racing Legend, 2004, etc.) recalls her idiosyncratic father and the unbreakable bond he formed with his country estate.
Located in Nottinghamshire, Thrumpton Hall once belonged to Lord Byron. Young George Seymour, who spent a year there with his childless aunt and uncle when his parents were dispatched to a diplomatic post in Bolivia, was the first child to have lived there in 300 years. Though the Byrons never suggested he would inherit it, the boy vowed Thrumpton Hall would one day belong to him. His daughter’s lively recollection of George’s love affair with the house includes candid reflections on the trials of taking over such a grandiose building, as well as some beautifully descriptive details. Her chronicle of young George’s discovery of the Hall’s hidden spaces, shown to him by a kindly electrician in 1927, is among the book’s many highlights. But the real interest lies in Seymour’s account of her parents’ relations with their daughter and each other. She wonders whether her father married her wealthy mother for the money. Their engagement occurred as the Byrons were considering selling Thrumpton Hall, and later in life George formed close, possibly homosexual bonds with two local men. The author speculates on her father’s overwhelming fondness for these characters, which included sharing beds with them. She records some strained remarks on the topic from her mother but doesn’t draw any firm conclusions. Interjections from the guarded but always beguiling Rosemary Scott Ellis Seymour make a lively addition to the text; she seems to be constantly looking over her daughter’s shoulder as Seymour writes, offering a crusty running commentary. The story takes a sad turn toward the end, as George’s obsession with his house is ultimately overshadowed by an even greater fixation on the ill-fated Robbie.
Creatively and entertainingly written family memoir.Pub Date: July 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-146656-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2008
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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