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DEAD DOG ROAD

Name: DEAD DOG ROAD
Author: Diane Black
ISBN: 9798988707905

A TRUE STORY INTO THE DARK WORLD OF AN ABUSED CHILD

by Diane Black ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 4, 2024

An enlightening account of the burdens facing both the abused and the people coming to their aid.

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A counselor recounts her time running a Texas children’s home, focusing on one case involving three Russian children.

After earning a master’s degree in counseling, debut author Black took a job at a center for abused children. Seeing firsthand the dilapidated state of the facility, she decided to open her own home. The Roosevelt House, finally realized in 2008, was a chance to help numerous children in need of care. But the author’s life took an unexpected turn, starting with a simple request from Child Protective Services to perform a psychosocial evaluation on a father and his adopted children in a nearby town. At the time, there were abuse claims against the man’s wife. But the oldest of the three kids, 12-year-old Alexey, who asserted the woman regularly abused him, was contradicted by the husband and the boy’s younger sisters, Anastasia and Svetlana. The father was initially happy for Alexey, a habitual runaway, to stay at the Roosevelt House but changed his mind after believing he would have to pay child support. So began a relentless struggle by the author to get Alexey, and later the girls, out of the couple’s house—especially demanding, as CPS concluded no abuse had been taking place. Black’s straightforward prose is effective, clearly presenting her perspective: She firmly believed the parents were abusive but received no assistance from CPS or even law enforcement. Still, some of the literal imagery doubles as potent metaphors. For example, the author spotted a barbed-wire fence before checking on the three children, who had just run away from home, and dubbed the father, with a trash bag of Alexey’s belongings over his shoulder, a “bizarre Santa.” The abuse, as described by the kids, is disturbing. But the illuminating story is frequently uplifting, as neither Black nor Alexey surrenders, and occasionally comical: The boy believed that stonewashed, holey jeans at a clothing store were definitely used.

An enlightening account of the burdens facing both the abused and the people coming to their aid.

Pub Date: March 4, 2024

ISBN: 9798988707905

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Black Flower Press

Review Posted Online: Dec. 9, 2018

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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UNDER THE BRIDGE

by Rebecca Godfrey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2005

A tour-de-force of true crime reportage.

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Godfrey reconstructs a horrific murder with a vividness found in the finest fiction, without ever sacrificing journalistic integrity.

The novel The Torn Skirt (2002) showed how well the author could capture the roiling inner life of a teenager. She brings that sensibility to bear in this account of the 1997 murder of a 14-year-old girl in British Columbia, a crime for which seven teenage girls and one boy were charged. While there’s no more over-tilled literary soil than that of the shocking murder in a small town, Godfrey manages to portray working-class View Royal in a fresh manner. The victim, Reena Virk, was a problematic kid. Rebelling against her Indian parents’ strict religiosity, she desperately mimicked the wannabe gangsta mannerisms of her female schoolmates, who repaid her idolization by ignoring her. The circumstances leading up to the murder seem completely trivial: a stolen address book, a crush on the wrong guy. But popular girls like Josephine and Kelly had created a vast, imaginary world (mostly stolen from mafia movies and hip-hop) in which they were wildly desired and feared. In this overheated milieu, reality was only a distant memory, and everything was allowed. The murder and cover-up are chilling. Godfrey parcels out details piecemeal in the words of the teens who took part or simply watched. None of them seemed to quite comprehend what was going on, why it happened or even—in a few cases—what the big deal was. The tone veers close to melodrama, but in this context it works, since the author is telling the story from the inside out, trying to approximate the relentlessly self-dramatizing world these kids inhabited. Given most readers’ preference for easily explained and neatly concluded crime narratives, Godfrey’s resolute refusal to impose false order on the chaos of a murder spawned by rumors and lies is commendable.

A tour-de-force of true crime reportage.