A sometimes-appealing memoir, but one that likely won’t sustain readers’ interest.
A young man struggles to overcome bipolar disorder in this debut memoir.
English author Spriggs recounts his experiences being bullied in secondary school, his studies at college and travels abroad, a series of failed job ventures, and his eventual creation of his own career path. At various points, he struggled with grades, work commitments, his weight, and being a closeted gay man in the mid-2000s. He took a demanding job as a buffet waiter in Paris, which was all the more challenging due to his limited knowledge of French, natural shyness, and downright dangerous living situation, as youths robbed and threatened him and other residents of his apartment building. Encouraged by friends and supported by sympathetic employers, he persevered through college only to become paranoid and combative, and he spent some time in a mental hospital. After he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Spriggs spent the next decade trying to find the right medications, struggling with side effects such as weight gain and suicidal thoughts. Due to his illness and his sensitive nature, his teaching job fell though, as did positions in business administration and social work. Spriggs ultimately opted for self-employment with a “health promotion” company, and he eventually returned to teaching foreign languages part time in primary schools. Early on, Spriggs’ account of living in Paris is engaging, and the highlight of the book. However, there are no paragraph breaks in the text until page 13, and this resulting wall of text may discourage some readers from continuing on, which is unfortunate. It might have improved the book, though, if the author had summarized instead of listing all the jobs he left and all the sick days he took. The memoir also might also have benefited from dramatizing key scenes, instead of merely recounting a litany of successes and setbacks. Also, it ends with a reference to its title (“You see there are two shadows of success. So what’s stopping you?!”), but this is never developed further or fully explained.
A sometimes-appealing memoir, but one that likely won’t sustain readers’ interest.Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5246-3619-7
Page Count: 126
Publisher: AuthorHouseUK
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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