A sometimes-bizarre but undeniably intriguing self-examination.
Balor’s debut memoir tells of his struggle to find his own identity and purpose in life.
The author, a 25-year-old grocery store janitor somewhere in suburban America, tells readers that he set out to write a novel, but his focus soon shifted to the journal he was writing at the same time. This yearlong chronicle begins as a stream-of-consciousness narrative, filled with seemingly random observations on such subjects as the wonder of black holes; he refers to his journal entries as “a cluster of ceaseless thoughts.” However, his quest for self-discovery ultimately becomes the book’s driving force. He constantly questioned the meaning of his life, and he sought inspiration by inquiring about his co-workers’ life-goals. Although he felt an attraction to women, he says, he had no discernible sex drive and also suffered from depression, apparently related to his parents’ divorce when he was 2. Over the course of this book, he tells of a gradually developing fear that he could be a paranoid schizophrenic. For example, inside his home, he says, he often heard voices, and he wasn’t sure whether they were from the tenants living upstairs or only in his head. He later suffered feelings of emptiness and moroseness, and although his interactions with others seemed to improve by the end of the memoir (he made some friends), he also seemed to need some more recovery time. Balor’s memoir is long and occasionally verbose, which he acknowledges, but the prose is strong and engaging throughout. Poems and snippets of short stories offset the personal narrative; they initially seem like asides but they quickly provide further insight into the author: “My aspirations are a ruse / To convince myself and acquire validation / From other plebs as lost as I.” Likewise, his worries about potential schizophrenia come across as earnest; at one point, for instance, he tells of being convinced that neighbors were listening to and regularly talking about him. The book is, at times, too metafictional, as the author sporadically discusses publishing his book, sifts through title possibilities, and even includes faux reviews from anonymous readers.
A sometimes-bizarre but undeniably intriguing self-examination.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5320-5762-5
Page Count: 466
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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.
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
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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