A vibrant depiction of a remarkable and inspiring individual.
An admiring aunt celebrates the life and impact of her niece born with spina bifida in this debut biography/memoir.
In 1983, Fraser’s niece Deihlia “crashed into the world,” with a touch-and-go prognosis. Born with spina bifida, Deihlia endured extensive emergency surgery in her early days of life and many other hospitalizations and surgeries thereafter, including two metal rods inserted into her back. Fraser, who always felt a special bond with her niece (they had the same rare blood type), shares key moments in Deihlia’s life, most particularly highlighting her niece’s embrace of many activities (including skiing while in her wheelchair) and a wide range of people while growing up in the Boston area, attending college in North Carolina, and returning home to live in her own apartment, with a roommate, post-graduation. A fan of video games, the comic book world, and partying with friends in clubs, Deihlia held a job, flirted with and dated women, and eventually cut off trademark blonde dreads for a shorter haircut as she renamed herself “Pork Chop” and hung out with jazz musicians to learn to become a trumpet player. While complications from spina bifida ultimately claimed Deihlia’s life in 2013, Fraser notes that her niece continues to appear to her as well as her friends. Debut author Fraser, who describes herself as a “writer and cosmic consultant,” has created a wonderful homage to her niece, who was clearly an engaging presence. Through a series of evocative episodic chapters, Fraser shows Deihlia’s empathy, charm (she even breaks thought to a disgruntled, burned-out cop), and challenges (her determination not to be deterred by stairs is starkly showcased in several anecdotes). The author’s discussion of her own back story and other family matters occasionally distracts from Deihla’s more compelling saga. Overall, however, Fraser has honored her niece with a memorable portrait, accompanied by a comic-book cover designed by Nye, Deihlia’s younger sister, and drawings by Gould.
A vibrant depiction of a remarkable and inspiring individual.Pub Date: June 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-69-228892-4
Page Count: 316
Publisher: The Cosmic Thread
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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