Skillfully portrays the bleakness of the prison system with an appreciation for the dark humor that allowed the author to...
A former prisoner recounts his years in the Soviet gulag in this memoir.
In this English translation of reminiscences originally recorded in 1970, Sokolenko shares stories from his years of imprisonment for political offenses during the Stalin regime. (A biographical note explains that Sokolenko was exonerated in 1956, when it was concluded that there was no basis for his original conviction.) The narrative does not follow Sokolenko’s imprisonment chronologically but is made up of a series of vignettes, with Sokolenko blending his own experiences into the stories of his fellow prisoners and their guards. These true stories capture both the horrific experience and bitter humor of Russia under Stalin, as committed socialists, black-market businessmen and ordinary people struggled with the changing definition of “enemy of the state.” Sokolenko’s narrative clearly demonstrates that the corruption and absurdity of the Soviet system confronted prisoners inside the gulag as well as outside—Sokolenko was often forbidden to use his agricultural experience, even though the camp was expected to grow its own food; medicinal stores of vodka were used for a prison guards’ party; a corrupt and incompetent gulag administrator was finally removed from his position, only to be reinstated because it was a crime for anyone to challenge his commitment to the socialist cause. Throughout the book, the tone is matter-of-fact, allowing the events described, rather than any elegant prose, to work on readers’ emotions. This was a wise decision by the author, who does not overwhelm the prisoners’ anecdotes with unnecessary commentary. (In contrast, the book’s footnotes, which decipher for the contemporary reader many of the names and policies Sokolenko mentions, are a useful addition, and the text could easily have accommodated more.) The result is a clear, bracing depiction, but not a maudlin one, of one of the darker chapters of modern history.
Skillfully portrays the bleakness of the prison system with an appreciation for the dark humor that allowed the author to survive it.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475246896
Page Count: 156
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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