A beautiful ode to determination and daring and an intimate look at one of our finest writers.
The award-winning author of Girl, Woman, Othergenerously shares her pathway to success in this nonfiction debut.
“You need the early knock-backs to develop the resilience that will make you unstoppable,” writes Evaristo, who was raised in a working-class family in South London, one of eight children born to a Nigerian father and a White Catholic mother. Some of her early knock-backs involved attacks on her family home by neighborhood racists. These attacks and other injustices cemented young Evaristo’s outsider status, which in turn fueled her relentless creative spirit. At age 60, she won the Booker Prize for her novel Girl, Woman, Other, the first Black woman and first Black British person to win the coveted award in its 50-year history, and the book was hailed as a favorite by Barack Obama and Roxane Gay. Here, Evaristo details the journey between her fraught beginnings and her career triumphs, and the result is part memoir and part meditation on determination, creativity, and activism. She writes with welcome candor and clarity about her biracial heritage, her fledgling early career in theater, and her rocky romantic relationships with both men and women. The author’s passion and commitment to community especially shine through in her guidance to writers at all levels about the importance of envisioning the best outcomes for themselves and for their work—and protecting themselves from naysayers. “Creativity circulates freely in our imaginations, waiting for us to tap into it. It must not be bound by rules or censorship, yet we should not ignore its socio-political contexts.” Evaristo inspires while keeping it real, deftly avoiding the sentimentality and vagueness that too often plague advice books. She lays bare the nuts and bolts of her writing process; pushes back against sexism, racism, and ageism; and imparts her hard-won wisdom unapologetically and with refreshing nuance.
A beautiful ode to determination and daring and an intimate look at one of our finest writers.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8021-5890-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
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
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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