by Donald M. Murray ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2001
A superior and wise memoir: The old writer’s mechanical functions may be failing, but his ability to tell a story clearly,...
An autobiographer records the adventure of his own aging.
Now in the midst of his eighth decade, Murray (English/Univ. of New Hampshire) relives a lifetime filled with love and tragedy, struggle and triumph—in many ways not an unusual story. He endured a cramped, unhappy youth, the only child of peculiarly unloving and inept parents. School was miserable. A WWII paratrooper and military policeman, he took part in the Battle of the Bulge. The graphic descriptions of the carnage are among the most powerful parts of his text, and, after more than half a century, the author seems still not quite discharged from the scenes of war. Tragedy intruded even upon Murray’s peacetime world, through the death of his beloved daughter. With such a history, it’s little surprise that the author’s story resembles something that might be uttered on an analyst’s couch—but it is somewhat strange to hear Murray fret that he has presented one self to the world, while living another life in secret. His account becomes universal and ultimately sustaining in the end. He discusses such matters as the geriatric habit of accumulating stuff (and more stuff), the shame and management of incontinence, and the health problems (including diabetes, depression, Parkinson’s, and heart disease) that one may pick up across the years. Throughout it all, Murray is sustained by (and sustains) his wife, who is his comrade in the battle against burgeoning illnesses. They watch each other with an intimacy and compassion that will be a revelation to those of a younger generation.
A superior and wise memoir: The old writer’s mechanical functions may be failing, but his ability to tell a story clearly, thoughtfully, and forcefully is intact as he sends a report from a country foreign to most readers.Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-345-43690-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
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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