An important one.
He was called Malcolm Little at birth; he was buried as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz; but he lived most of his life as Malcolm X and was the most rabid racist of his time while he ran counter to the movement which dominated it.
As he said over the cups of coffee cum cream he drank with Alex Haley (who took down this story and contributes a long epilogue), it "was the only thing I like integrated" His father was one of six out of seven boys who died violently (predominantly at white hands). Malcolm X never doubted for a minute that he would be assassinated, just as he was. His mother was committed to a state mental hospital—"legal modern slavery." He was farmed out and by the time he was sixteen had been schooled to the hard fact that "everything in life is a hustle." "Sharp" by this time, he came to New York, to Harlem, where he steered white women to black men, stole, took cocaine, and learned the "cesspool morals of the white man from the best possible source, from his own women." Sent to prison at twenty one, he found Allah, the religion of Islam and Elijah Muhammad there. Once out, he became one of Muhammad's most militant disciples and seared his way across the national scene. Interestingly enough, it was after Muhammad "silenced" him, i.e, suspended him from the movement, that he went to the original Holy City and the Holy Land and became more aware of the possibility of white and black "oneness" Handler's introduction and Haley's personal commentary at the close present the "black panther" coiled to spring in somewhat softer focus although his intemperate hatred justified to some extent by the circumstances of his early life) and lashing zealotry fire the book from beginning to end. Particularly in its view of the rough underside of Harlem does the record have a revelatory as well as testamentary impact.
An important one.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 1965
ISBN: 0141185430
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1965
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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