Mattlin’s life is inspiring, but his attempt at an unsentimental memoir falls short of the mark.
Born with a severe neuromuscular condition, writer and NPR commentator Mattlin pens the story of his life so far.
In 1962, Mattlin was six months old and still unable to sit up on his own. After years of visits to different medical specialists, he received a diagnosis of spinal muscular atrophy, an inherited disease that causes progressive, degenerative muscle weakness. While most people with this illness are unlikely to live to adulthood, Mattlin’s story is filled with details of how he managed to beat the odds again and again. He not only survived childhood, but be became one of the first wheelchair-bound students to graduate from Harvard. He eventually married and had two children. Although he strives to make this memoir as free from self-pity as possible, what comes across is a portrait of a rather unpleasant man. While the author touches on the history of the disability movement throughout the book, the story gets bogged down by a litany of Mattlin’s grudges, from the Harvard dorm room he was promised but didn’t get, to his disagreements with his father over his financial support. He describes how nearly every personal attendant he’s had has failed him—they are variously described as drunk, stupid, untrustworthy, crazy or some combination thereof. Mattlin also describes his sexual proclivities at uncomfortable length—e.g., how he manages to masturbate despite his muscular degeneration and his adolescent attempts at autofellatio, “a dirty little secret of the extremely scoliotic.” It isn’t until the final pages of the book—during which Mattlin discusses his hiring of an attendant who punctured his “self-righteous emotional shield”—that the author begins to open up in a genuine way. Unfortunately, it may be too late for most readers.
Mattlin’s life is inspiring, but his attempt at an unsentimental memoir falls short of the mark.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-61608-731-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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