A previously suppressed portion (1932-34) of Nin's near- endless diaries that's shocking for its boundless narcissism, preciousness, and grandiosity—especially when Nin swoons over her sexual affair with her father or describes a late-term abortion. Unexpurgation, in this case, overwhelms the famous, liberated love scenes with Henry Miller and June, making Nin seem paltry and pitiable because she is so blindly self-absorbed. ``A marvelous story,'' Henry Miller writes to Nin in these pages—``but a bad diary.'' Sprinkled throughout these dreamlike fragments are the names of fascinating lovers: Henry and June, of course; Nin's long- suffering husband, Hugh; French poet and dramatist Antonin Artaud; and Otto Rank (Nin's analyst as well as her lover, who warns her that diaries are her opium habit, unlikely to lead to enlightenment). But Nin's prose is muddled and sketchy, always circling back to her moods and qualities and neuroses, never touching down long enough to give the reader a sense of place: ``I leap like a squirrel about Paris, laughing at astrological predictions.'' Indeed, Nin leaps from bed to bed, always ending up with Henry. But external events, even the Great Depression, concern her only as they advance or limit her own enjoyment. In a rare moment of unadorned candor, she admits ``that there is a deformity in my vision which no intelligence can cure.'' This is never more apparent than when she describes her sexual affair with her father, her ``double'' or ``male half'': ``Is this love of my double that self-love again?'' Most readers will answer with a resounding ``yes.'' Though it will probably generate some prurient interest, in the end this is an overheated muddle of thoughts and notes about a black hole of self-absorption.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-15-144366-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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