NPR contributor Shetterly tells the story of young married life as she and her husband set out from Maine to Los Angeles, but were ultimately forced to return home, stymied by the economic recession, illness and an unexpected pregnancy.
This cozy, homespun memoir blends a call to community (“until all Americans realize this—how much we need each other—[some] of us will always fall through the cracks”) with a daily glimpse into one family’s experience of economic hardship in a faltering economy. In the spring of 2008, the couple headed west, conscious of the symbolic promise of going westward in the American mythos. Following an indirect route from Maine to California via the deep South, with two pets in tow, Shetterly describes nights in cheap motels, the adventure of the road, her unexpected delight in the state of Texas—despite her antipathy to George W. Bush—and the underhanded tactics of a corrupt moving company. There is a dangerously run-down apartment on arrival, the unexpected news of a pregnancy, a crazy neighbor upstairs, indignation at the privileges of the L.A. super-rich, the death of a beloved cat and, of course, one problem after another seeking and not finding full employment. Through it all, the author found inspiration in the pioneer stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the lyrics of folk songwriter Greg Brown. Bruised and penniless, the couple finally decided to return home to live with Shetterly’s mother in rural Maine and made the cross-country drive in reverse, finding continuing economic struggles and the rewarding challenges of family in hard times. A sincere but edgeless Prairie Home Companion–style memoir of a down-on-their-luck young couple, likely to resonate with readers interested in community values and the appeal of the simple life.
Pub Date: March 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4013-4146-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Voice/Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 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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