An artful addition to Kennedyana, complete with detailed literary forensics that will inevitably invite a comparison to the...
Comprehensive account of the day a young president took the oath of office and gave one of the great speeches of the 20th century.
Clarke (Searching for Crusoe, 2001, etc.) details the activities of president-elect John F. Kennedy for the 11 days that culminated with his delivery of an electrifying address calculated to vie with Lincoln’s and FDR’s best. He unravels the skein of authorship, including the contributions of Ted Sorensen and others, relating just how the youthful politician became the true owner of the speech’s grace and eloquence and how JFK delivered the oration of his life that cold, sunny day more than four decades ago. The cool central figure, fully aware of power of the High Court of History, spent time phoning and tanning at the family ménage at Palm Beach, arranging liaisons and ignoring the imprecations of a dithering mother and a domineering father. Jack reenacted composing a “draft” of his speech in the presence of a reporter or two as Evelyn Lincoln typed consecutive versions. Jackie fretted about the dowdy “Maison Blanche” and devised a killer initial First Lady outfit with Oleg Cassini. Volatile Sinatra, impresario of the inaugural gala, enlisted a “bouillabaisse of hoofers, opera stars, vaudeville comedians, Broadway belters, and classical actors.” Pals from the days of PT 109 appeared. Bigwigs of the generation passing into history succumbed to rampant political schadenfreude. Clarke is adept at seeing the webs of internecine feuds and animosities so hot in the inaugural VIP seats that spontaneous combustion didn’t seem impossible. He’s also an apt student of the what-he-had-for-breakfast-that-day school of popular history, and as his vivid narrative unfolds in that tradition, we can hear the words of the speech rise from the page.
An artful addition to Kennedyana, complete with detailed literary forensics that will inevitably invite a comparison to the present state of political rhetoric and contemplation of what we have lost.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2004
ISBN: 0-8050-7213-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
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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