Attention Wal-Mart shoppers—and anyone interested in the history of retailing in America. Here’s the tale of the late Sam Walton, once the richest man in the country, and of the marketing juggernaut he fashioned. With “big box” stores at every crossroads, Wal-Mart, together with affiliated outlets like Sam’s Clubs, is the largest retailer in the world; Mr. Sam’s enterprise is second only to Uncle Sam’s in number of employees. (“Associates— is what the Wal-Mart sales force is called.) As reporter Ortega, who followed the firm for the Wall Street Journal, demonstrates, it was all done with a heavy dose of down-home bunkum and a monomaniacal devotion to business by cunning country boy Walton. Single-minded Mr. Sam, driving an old truck, used to pay folksy visits to his expanding domain. As it grew to become a ravenous retailing force and he became a billionaire, he remained the same canny tightwad, charming his “associates” even as he underpaid them. “Satisfaction guaranteed” and “low prices” were the watchwords, and if that eliminated the small-town merchant, so be it. But Mr. Sam died, and times have become a little more difficult. Many communities have successfully resisted heavy-handed Wal-Mart incursions. Concurrent with a “Buy American” campaign, the firm was shown to be buying lots of jeans and tchotchkes made in Chinese gulags and shirts and bras made by Third World children. (The Kathy Lee Gifford child-labor flap is a case study in mismanagement.) With the company based in Arkansas, one might wonder about a Clinton connection; and sure enough, Hillary appears as a feisty board member. All in all, Ortega provides a vivid analysis of Wal-Mart and competitors like Sears, Price Clubs, and, notably, K-Mart, with many anecdotes that are emblematic of a new way of business. Here is well-researched, high-end business reportage, readable and informative. Put it in the category of “Store Wars.” (Author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8129-6377-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Times/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
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
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