The publisher no doubt hoped to preserve the legacy of one of the university’s best-known alumni, but this unfocused effort...
Carson and Johnson (both Journalism/Univ. of Arizona) have assembled a great many facts about Udall, who died in 1998, but facts alone don’t illuminate a life. Their narrative covers decades of recent political history without supplying the historical context and analysis necessary to make sense of the parade of information. As a result, it’s difficult to appreciate the magnitude of Udall’s many achievements, which range from his environmental legislation to his role in reforming the congressional seniority system. The authors’ lack of perspective is evident in their treatment of Udall’s ancestors, youth, and early adulthood, which are of marginal interest to anyone other than family members or Arizona history buffs yet occupy one-quarter of the book’s text. Carson and Johnson interject such profound personal events as Udall’s divorce and his second wife’s suicide into discussions of political events without warning or elaboration. Full chapters about Udall’s private life and sense of humor are tacked on towards the end but fail to flesh out this portrait. Instead, the congressman comes across as a self-centered, somewhat unsympathetic figure, which is clearly not the intention of the authors, who knew and respected him. Their subject would have been far better served had they focused exclusively on the key themes of his professional career.
The publisher no doubt hoped to preserve the legacy of one of the university’s best-known alumni, but this unfocused effort is simply not adequate for that purpose. (16 halftones, not seen)Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2001
ISBN: 0-8165-2049-6
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Univ. of Arizona
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
