bookshelf

HE WAS A MIDWESTERN BOY ON HIS OWN

Name: HE WAS A MIDWESTERN BOY ON HIS OWN
Author: Bob Greene
ISBN: 0-689-12117-2

by Bob Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1991

bookshelf

Another greatly engaging collection of Greene's Chicago Tribune and Esquire columns. As before (Cheeseburgers, 1985, etc.), Greene roams America in search of the humorous, the poignant, the nostalgic, the exemplary-and brings home one memorable story after another. Here, he writes exuberantly of his date with the original Doublemint Twins, now middle-aged; talks to America's ``most extreme workaholic,'' a St. Louis radio- station manager who works from 2:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every day; attends a convention of women named ``Linda''; reports in a devastating deadpan on a bar where male patrons water-gun nearly naked bargirls; tries to buy an abandoned Maine high school at auction; tracks down the owner of a lost SuperBowl ring, and so on. Occasionally, his prose steers into the pious or the sentimental (dying children, the lost joys of youth), but for the most part this is a softly philosophical, gently humane, highly entertaining harvesting from one of America's very best columnists.

Pub Date: April 1, 1991

ISBN: 0-689-12117-2

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1991

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

- BOOK REVIEW
20 YEARS YOUNGER
by Bob Greene

- BOOK REVIEW
LATE EDITION
by Bob Greene

- BOOK REVIEW
WHEN WE GET TO SURF CITY
by Bob Greene

bookshelf

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

bookshelf

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

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

bookshelf

BLACK BOY

A RECORD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

by Richard Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1945

bookshelf

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.