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MADELEINE'S WORLD

A CHILD'S JOURNEY FROM BIRTH TO AGE THREE

A father's close-up view of his daughter's growing up, from her active days in the womb to the exhausted tantrum at the end of her third birthday. Hall is a writer of both fiction and nonfiction (The Impossible Country, 1994), but it is the novelist's sensibility that he brings to this biography of his first child, Madeleine. He has done his research on mental and physical development of the infant to the age we now call preschooler: the prehensile grasp of newborns, so strong in the first days; the separation of ``me'' from ``not-me''; the understanding of object permanence; the development of mobility, self-awareness, language; issues of control (the two-year-old's ``No!''). But to his close observations of her development (he was the parent on duty exactly ``40 percent'' of the time), he brought also a familiarity with myth and the growth of consciousness, and a poetic sensibility that realizes things are not always what they seem. A simple example: Blowing out her second birthday candles disconcerted Madeleine. Normal interpretation: Where did the flame go? What magic is this? But Hall probes deeper. Interpreting a photograph from that event, he sees Madeleine as looking ``worried and guilty''; had she ``broken'' or ``killed'' the flames? Is she beginning to understand herself as an instrument, a cause of the effect? When she begins to fear the monsters in the shadows, Hall reads and rereads the books meant to reassure her but finally comes to grips with Madeleine's very real dread and assigns himself to protect her: ``If a tiger came in here, I'd give it a karate chop.'' ``Poop'' is also a big issue, as is Madeleine's ambivalence at the arrival of her baby sister. Like every first-time parent, Hall seems to project his own childhood doubts and fears onto his daughter. Nevertheless, it's a pleasure to have a father report so astutely and with such concern on a baby growing up.

Pub Date: Nov. 10, 1997

ISBN: 0-395-87059-3

Page Count: 257

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1997

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

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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BLACK BOY

A RECORD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

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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