A warmhearted memoir sure to appeal to other new grandmothers—and Quindlen’s many fans.
A first-time grandmother discovers joy and self-knowledge in her new role.
Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist, columnist, and memoirist Quindlen (Alternate Side, 2018, etc.) celebrates the gift of being a grandmother: a new experience, she writes, that gives her “a second chance, to see, to be, to understand the world, to look at it and reimagine my place in it, to feel as though I’ve made a mark.” Besides reporting sweet anecdotes about her toddler grandson, the author reflects on her changing relationship with her son and daughter-in-law, an inevitable shift from being central in the lives of her children to a “peripheral place” in a new family dynamic. Her son, she has observed with pride, has become an exemplary parent; when she asked “what surprised him most about being a father,” he replied, “I guess it’s how much I love him in a way that I’ve never loved anyone before.” For Quindlen, that reply was “like sunrise and sunset and New Year’s Eve all at once.” Admitting that she can be opinionated, she has learned to hold her tongue when it comes to parenting decisions. “Nana judgment must be employed judiciously, and exercised carefully,” she warns. “Those who make their opinions sound like the Ten Commandments see their grandchildren only on major holidays and in photographs.” The author was 64 when her grandson was born; her grandmother was 47 when she had her first grandchild, yet grandparents seemed so much older then: “Our grandmothers were pre-gym, pre-Botox, pre–skinny jeans.” They never kissed, hugged, or praised; they would never have gotten down on the floor to play with their dozens of grandchildren, but Quindlen was certain of their love. “I thought,” she writes, “they were the patriarchs, the source of all judgment and wisdom.” The author imparts sensible advice with self-deprecating humor and sincere gratitude for the bounty of her life.
A warmhearted memoir sure to appeal to other new grandmothers—and Quindlen’s many fans.Pub Date: April 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9610-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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