An impressively forthcoming yet idiosyncratic recollection.
In this memoir, a man remembers an emotionally turbulent childhood and the long shadow it cast over his adult life.
Cocorocchio grew up in postwar Italy during the 1950s and ’60s in Sant’Elia Fiumerapido, not far from Rome, his world infused with the traumas of the suffering nation, a ruined cosmos sensitively described. The author and his family contended with austere financial hardship. They all lived in a two-room apartment that didn’t even have running water, forcing them to retrieve it from a fountain outside. Cocorocchio wilted both under the mercurial anger of his father and the guilt trips of his mother, the “Queen of Martyrs.” The author’s parents finally moved to Canada in 1964—his father was motivated less by an aspiration than a “deep desire to leave” Italy. But that fresh start did little to alleviate the perennial tension between Cocorocchio and his parents, an emotional conflict that burdened him his entire life but that he didn’t fully confront until he was a grown man: “I must have been in my forties when I first became aware of the yearning that had been festering inside me my whole life. A pining for some lost opportunity—to have been stillborn, and for my mother to have died while giving birth to me.” The author chronicles his story with admirable, even courageous candor—besides poverty and familial conflicts, he endured sexual abuse as a child, a string of failed marriages as an adult, and the heartbreaking loss of a daughter to cancer. But this is a deeply personal memoir, an emotionally painful chronicle that seems intended for those in Cocorocchio’s circle of friends and family; the remembrance concludes with a brief commentary from a psychiatrist. As intelligent and frank as this book genuinely is, it is too narrow to appeal to a broad readership.
An impressively forthcoming yet idiosyncratic recollection.Pub Date: March 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-03-913747-9
Page Count: 228
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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