A vivid, behind-the-scenes peek into the business of politics.
A lawyer looks back on his long career of campaigning at the local, state, and national levels.
In this debut memoir, Patton recounts decades of his political work for Democrats. Raised on a farm in “nearly pristine white” Iowa, he became a traveler in Europe, a ski bum in Colorado, and a college and law school student at the University of Iowa. After helping his father get elected as an Iowa state senator, Patton went on to join many other Democratic campaigns across the country, from city council races in Connecticut to presidential primaries in California. He learned practical political skills, such as voter targeting, advance work, and encouraging people to “vote more than once” in straw polls. In the nation’s capital, he volunteered for the Washington Urban League and joined in organizing the 1968 Poor People’s March. In 1970, he helped Walter Fauntroy become the District of Columbia’s first congressional representative in a century. Patton continued to campaign for African-American candidates in D.C., even helping ex-mayor Marion Barry win an election after the politician’s release from prison. He also did union work for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in New York and set up a lobbying firm. Over the course of this memoir, the author mixes with such political notables as Hubert Humphrey, Ed Muskie, and Barack Obama. Overall, it’s an entertaining account of politics in modern America. The book’s title is misleading, though, as only part of it involves Patton’s work with African-American candidates; it also devotes a lot of space to white candidates and his personal life. A few statements may seem patronizing, such as, “From time to time, when things hadn’t gone his way, [Barry] had pointed the accusatory finger at white people. I would chuckle, knowing that when the full and objective story of the city’s political development was told, white folks would have a major role.” Also, Patton and others breathe “sigh[s] of relief” so often that they seem to risk hyperventilation. However, the author’s anecdotes do provide insights into the realities of American politicking in a pleasantly conversational style. This isn’t a tell-all, but Patton certainly tells enough to give readers a salty taste of politics and of the sometimes-corrupting power of money—although it may make it harder to agree that “electioneering is a noble cause.”
A vivid, behind-the-scenes peek into the business of politics.Pub Date: June 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9975284-0-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Patton Corporation
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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.
