by Alicia Dujovne Ortiz ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 19, 1996
An impressionistic portrait of a woman revered and reviled in Argentina, just in time for the scheduled December release of the Madonna film Evita. Eva Per¢n became an icon during her 194552 reign as wife of dictator Juan Per¢n, but one perceived in radically different ways: To some she symbolized all that is good about Argentina; to others, all that is evil. These contradictory perceptions took such hold of the Argentinean imagination that they still run strong 44 years after her death from cancer at the age of 33. Argentine journalist Ortiz paints a picture of Per¢n that provides ammunition for both camps: She was, it seems, a petty, jealous, and shallow woman, who also did remarkable good for Argentina's poor. Ortiz digs deep into Per¢n's background as the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy landowner, and as a mediocre and often desperately poor actress, to explain her contradictory character. But this is no linear biography. Ortiz's Per¢n is like a character in a Gabriel Garc°a M†rquez novel: Her essence shifts according to the situation or the time of day. Ortiz even adopts a M†rquez-like style, offering several different versions of crucial events in Per¢n's life. ``But where is the truth?'' she asks. ``In life, as in drama, it is often found in feelings.'' At the same time, Ortiz inundates the reader with details about the palace intrigues of the Per¢n years, drawn from newly declassified documents, further tantalizing readers with suggestive but unsubstantiated hints of vast payoffs to Eva and Juan Per¢n from postwar Nazi fugitives in exchange for safe haven. Indeed, Ortiz's biography is so awash in suggestive information that it becomes virtually impossible to follow all of the possible threads of Per¢n's life. But, like an impressionist painting viewed from just the right angle, the book does convey an intriguing image of one the most controversial and fascinating women of our century.
Pub Date: Nov. 19, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-14599-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1996
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
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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