by Billy Altman ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1997
Journalist Altman essays the biographer's craft with the story of the actor, comedian, theater critic, and genial Nabob of New York and Hollywood who, half a century after his death, may still be the funniest American writer of them all. Coming to Gotham from New England with a Harvard degree in hand and without a career in sight, Benchley displayed a highly developed comedic gift that soon placed him first among equals at the fabled Algonquin Round Table. In that Vicious Circle, the young wag somehow retained his sweet nature. That, coupled with a facile wit, captivated the likes of Robert Sherwood, Dorothy Parker, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Franklin P. Adams—all the beautiful people of the age, and phalanxes of fans. Thence to the movies for scriptwriting, character acting, and a series of legendary short comic films. Benchley was, in turn, bumbler and jaunty boulevardier, teetotaler and prodigious imbiber. The tales of his wit and the anecdotes of his hijinks are manifold, of course. Tracking secondary sources, primarily Nathaniel Benchley's pleasing 1955 narrative of his father's life, Altman provides little that is new, offering just a discreet word or two concerning the drinking and genteel womanizing. (Ane he will surely offend all of Canada by calling Stephen Leacock a Briton; the estimable professor left England at age six.) The lesson of the present text, nevertheless, as Franklin P. Adams taught, is that ``20th century American humor owes its soul'' to Robert Benchley. Not much new here, but the good old yarns of the Master and his times are worth hearing again. And the extensive quotes from his comic canon, including some bright theater reviews, are worth the price of admission, particularly if they impel the reader to seek out more of Dr. Benchley's works. They may be the sovereign remedy for what ails us all. (illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-393-03833-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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