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LAWYER

A LIFE OF COUNSEL AND CONTROVERSY

A perceptive, witty memoir of the lawyering life, by one of the most prestigious members of the New York bar. The law career of the late Arthur Liman (he died last year) spanned four decades and included some of the most interesting cases of the late 20th century: he became an attorney after observing Senator McCarthy’s contempt for legal freedoms in the 1950s, and by the late 1980s his clients included William Paley of CBS and junk-bond guru Michael Milken. The book is spiced with personal anecdotes about some of his dealings with the famous and the infamous. Some, like media mogul Steve Ross (who negotiated the Time-Warner merger), come across as decent, almost humble, folks. Others are not spared Liman’s well-developed wrath toward any who would abuse the legal system: the book closes with Liman’s notes from the Iran-Contra investigation (of which he was chief legal counsel for the Senate), in which he castigates the circumvention of the Constitution by key White House and CIA officials. In particular, he never believed that Admiral Poindexter authorized all of the illegal activities without President Reagan’s knowledge (unfortunately, Liman’s private comment during a recess that Poindexter’s testimony was —bullshit— was picked up by a microphone and broadcast on TV). Liman also reflects on the investigators— poor decisions, which unwittingly created a national hero out of Oliver North, who ’symbolized contempt for Congress.— Always, Liman is quick to point out why Iran-Contra differed from Whitewater, Watergate, and other high-profile scandals: the issue at stake was whether the executive branch could ignore Congress by creating an unaccountable, secret organization that would conduct covert foreign policy and decide on matters of national security. Only rarely succumbing to legalese, Liman’s book is an important reminder of the foundations of constitutional law and offers a fine example of one attorney’s integrity. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998

ISBN: 1-891620-04-5

Page Count: 384

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998

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NIGHT

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. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

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

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

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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