In a tawdry account, Barbara Kuklinski describes 25 years of abuse at the hands of her husband, a convicted New Jersey hit man who claims to have killed dozens of times. Driver, formerly a producer of TV's America's Most Wanted, splices segments from his prison interviews of hit man Richard Kuklinski with the reminiscences of his wife, Barbara. Claiming that she ``made a career out of not asking'' her husband questions, Barbara Kuklinski recalls that in 1960, when she was 19 and dating Richard, she learned that he was already married and had two children. She tried to break up with him, but he changed her mind by cutting her with a knife. Later, when she was pregnant with their child, he knocked her out for kissing her own father hello. As she describes such incidents and the later violence and terror to which he subjected her and their three children during their marriage, Barbara reiterates that Richard was often generous and kind, that there was ``a good Richard and a bad Richard.'' A pool hustler, petty criminal, and porno-film dealer in his early 20s, Richard claims that he ``connected'' with ``wiseguys'' he'd played poker with and began working as a collector, ``a reliable independent contractor.'' He says he'd already killed someone by the time he was 17 (Driver substantiates precious few of Richard's jailhouse boasts). He describes killing several men using a variety of methods (``I can't even remember them all''). He also hints that he killed Roy DeMeo, ``a Gambino crew boss,'' and that the hit was ``sanctioned...by an unnamed organized crime figure.'' He's serving four 30-year sentences in Trenton (N.J.) State Prison. This portrait of an ugly marriage and a brutal, bullying sociopath is about as insightful as an afternoon talk show. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 9, 1994
ISBN: 0-525-93786-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
It must be hard being right all the time, but controversial rapper and black activist Sister Souljah doesn't mind, judging from her remarkably smug, occasionally uplifting memoir. Let there be no doubt, this ``young sultry, big, brown-eyed, voluptuous, wholesome, intelligent, spiritual, ghetto girl'' has opinions. She is for belief in God, hard work, self-respect, community service, political activism, a strong family structure, and black women sharing their men in the face of a huge supply-side shortage. She is against abortion, narcotics, the welfare system, interracial dating, and homosexuality. Passionate in all things, Souljah's juxtaposition of her activism and her active hormones can produce odd results. When a man she wants turns up at a committee meeting, she recounts: ``I...set to work on how to organize Black students across the country into an African student network. With moist panties and a body that wanted to be touched...I argued that most African students were confronted by the same problems.'' Souljah's political beliefs frequently become little more than sidelines to her accounts of failed romances—indignant stories of a strong, single, sexy black heroine and the brothers who let her down. The men who fail come in all varieties (from her father to her mother's lovers and her own), but Souljah concludes that their shortcomings are the result of centuries of white racist oppression—psychological, political, cultural. Ultimately, the book reveals the psyche of a young black woman who feels she has been betrayed by too many and who trusts no one. Everyone disappoints her. After eight chapters (each named for the guilty individual in question: ``Mother,'' ``Nathan,'' ``Mona,'' etc.), a predictable pattern emerges in which Souljah's initial optimism wears off and gives way first to rationalization, then to harsh condemnation. Part fiery political diatribe, part searing sexual history, part unintentional psychological profile, Souljah throws more heat than light.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-8129-2483-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Times/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1994
Asante is a talented writer, but his memoir is undernourished.
A young black man’s self-destructive arc, cut short by a passion for writing.
Asante’s (It’s Bigger than Hip-Hop, 2008, etc.) memoir, based on his teenage years in inner-city Philadelphia, undoubtedly reflects the experiences of many African-American youngsters today in such cities. By age 14, the author was an inquisitive, insecure teen facing the hazards that led his beleaguered mother, a teacher, to warn him, “[t]hey are out there looking for young black boys to put in the system.” This was first driven home to Asante when his brother received a long prison sentence for statutory rape; later, his father, a proud, unyielding scholar of Afrocentrism, abruptly left under financial strain, and his mother was hospitalized after increasing emotional instability. Despite their strong influences, Asante seemed headed for jail or death on the streets. This is not unexplored territory, but the book’s strength lies in Asante’s vibrant, specific observations and, at times, the percussive prose that captures them. The author’s fluid, filmic images of black urban life feel unique and disturbing: “Fiends, as thin as crack pipes, dance—the dancing dead….Everybody’s eyes curry yellow or smog gray, dead as sunken ships.” Unfortunately, this is balanced by a familiar stance of adolescent hip-hop braggadocio (with some of that genre’s misogyny) and by narrative melodrama of gangs and drug dealing that is neatly resolved in the final chapters, when an alternative school experience finally broke through Asante’s ennui and the murderous dealers to whom he owed thousands were conveniently arrested. The author constantly breaks up the storytelling with unnecessary spacing, lyrics from (mostly) 1990s rap, excerpts from his mother’s journal, letters from his imprisoned brother, and quotations from the scholars he encountered on his intellectual walkabout in his late adolescence. Still, young readers may benefit from Asante’s message: that an embrace of books and culture can help one slough off the genuinely dangerous pathologies of urban life.
Asante is a talented writer, but his memoir is undernourished.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9341-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
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