An engaging tale of self-actualization.
An inspiring memoir about a man pursuing his goal to become a psychiatrist.
Wilkerson (Beautiful Brown Eyes and Other Stories, 2008) offers a modern-day illustration of the American dream, beginning with his early life on a farm. He and his family moved around Oklahoma and Arkansas as his father tried to find work during the Great Depression. As the author grew up, his expectations were minimal: He would most probably take up farming and work on his grandparents’ land, or find some local job in the neighborhood. But his life took some unexpected turns, and he began to want more than what his parents had. As early as age 7, he learned that he couldn’t rely on his father, a shifty man who couldn’t hold a job or support his family. His father disappeared for periods of time, eventually abandoning his family to run off with a woman named Mary Matheny, later the mother of the author’s five half siblings. Once Wilkerson became the man of the house, he took it upon himself to find ways to make money. Later, he wanted to go to college and medical school and one day have a solid profession. Despite disadvantages and challenges that included a lack of finances, education and family support, he pursued his dream and made it a reality. Wilkerson tells his story with humor, honesty and affection and paints an evocative picture of his trials and achievements. The memoir’s brief chapters center on charming anecdotes that lend color to the author’s climb to success, and his determination throughout is uplifting and inspiring. Readers will also appreciate the author’s eye for detail and his skill at relating the kinds of moments that make stories come to life (“[M]y very first memory at around age three is of Grandpa Sherman placing a cold gallon of milk in the dusty backseat floor of our 1929 Ford.”).
An engaging tale of self-actualization.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2013
ISBN: 978-1479302062
Page Count: 322
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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