A heartfelt testament to the power of positive thinking and a primer for readers considering open-water scuba certification.
A debut memoir celebrates the author’s determination not to be limited by her physical disability.
Myrick was born with “a congenital defect of the left arm called Radial Hemimelia…where the arm bone (radius) is considerably shortened.” Despite this, she “actually led a somewhat ‘normal’ life,” doing everything her “siblings did—playing dodge ball, softball, and jacks.” Growing up in a family that “saw me, not my hand” enabled the author to develop a can-do attitude and to persevere even when she feared death, as when she started learning to swim. Her interest in diving was born when she watched a scuba show on TV: She “was mesmerized” by the “explosion of color…Bright yellow, pink and blue fish were everywhere.” Before long, she was taking her first diving lessons. Then, for her certification dives, she and her husband, James, chose Divetech at the Cobalt Coast Resort in Grand Cayman, known for its tranquil, clear waters. But choppy seas with strong undercurrents were the order of the day. She failed her first try at certification, but she persisted, succeeding on her second attempt. In prose that is often searing, she describes being constantly worried about how people perceived her. As a child, she often asked “God to make people stop staring” at her hand. The opening chapter dream sequence during her flight to Grand Cayman provides a backdrop for her love and terror of the sea: Moving “timidly into the warm water, wading ankle deep, the water seems to beckon me,” and when it “is just below my knees, my heart starts to race; I can hear pounding in my ears and I can hardly breathe.” Readers who are interested in scuba diving should appreciate Myrick’s straightforward descriptions of the equipment and the step-by-step skills needed for open-water diving certification: “You wear the mask over your eyes and nose to provide an air pocket for better vision and equalization of pressure”; “we began switching from the snorkel to the second-stage regulator, lifting the inflator hose, releasing air from the BCD, exhaling.”
A heartfelt testament to the power of positive thinking and a primer for readers considering open-water scuba certification.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9600839-0-9
Page Count: 89
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2019
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
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
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