Coherence is a contrivance of any life story, Chase implies in his candid and insightful memoir; some truths may be shared...
Fragments come together to reveal a life.
Novelist and memoirist Chase (Winkie, 2006, etc.), who chronicled his brother’s death from AIDS in The Hurry-Up Song (1995), constructs this book—partly a documentary of his life, partly a meditation on living—in the form of “aphorism-like statements” which, “when added one to another, might accrue to make some larger statement that will placate despair.” The passages, most not longer than a sentence or two, contain random observations; journal entries; remembered dreams; overheard remarks; and bits of conversations with Chase’s partner, therapist, parents, co-workers and friends. He records losing his baby teeth, rewarded by a dime from the tooth fairy—a rare happy memory of his boyhood. His parents’ contentious marriage, he writes, resulted in his “crippling inner turmoil as an adult.” Emotional turmoil has been fueled, too, by his struggle to admit his homosexuality, “The odd nature of the closet, the open secret, not only to others but to oneself.” Lost “in the forest” of his feelings, he engaged in an affair with an emotionally fragile woman. “But this isn’t merely a story of sexual confusion,” he admits, “rather of self-doubt, which is bigger.” He doubts, above all, his ability to love and to be loved: “As the reader may have noticed, I like to mingle love with panic, self-doubt, and conjecture.” Chase writes movingly of his parents’ serious health problems and deaths and his brother’s tragic last years. He recounts travels to Rome and Egypt with his partner and reflects on the emotional impact of 9/11. Ellipses are as forceful as words: “[L]et the white space between these sentences stand for what couldn’t be seen then; or what can’t be remembered now….”
Coherence is a contrivance of any life story, Chase implies in his candid and insightful memoir; some truths may be shared in words, others hidden between the lines.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4683-0695-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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