by Dusty Earl Trimmer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 8, 2013
An unevenly executed memoir about the disastrous results of the Vietnam War and its aftermath.
A Vietnam veteran’s debut memoir offers a tribute to his fellow soldiers.
Trimmer provides a detailed reminiscence of his personal experiences as a soldier in Vietnam. Along the way, he places his story in the wider context of the war and addresses the conditions and circumstances of veterans in the decades that followed. Trimmer has little affection for the Army itself and describes abysmal conditions while he was deployed, but he does value the bonds he formed with the men with which he served, and he makes clear that their fraternal loyalty continues to the present day. Personal stories, contributed by other members of Trimmer’s platoon, expand the story beyond his own experiences, and a chapter devoted to veterans who have died is particularly affecting. The author has less sympathy for people who opposed the war; “Hanoi Jane Fonda” and the “Ameri-Cong” media come in for particular vitriol, and Trimmer cites his opposition to “Hanoi John” Kerry’s 2004 presidential run as his motivation for beginning to speak publicly about Vietnam. He also offers devastating indictments of people who made it difficult for veterans to receive necessary support in their civilian lives. With his own diagnoses of PTSD and Type 2 diabetes caused by wartime exposure to Agent Orange, Trimmer has experienced many of the challenges that veterans face; however, as he notes, his “novice attempt at writing a book of this size may not be as fluid as most book readers are used to.” Although discrete sections offer cogent, vivid narratives, they’re disorganized and occasionally repetitive, and the author’s passion for his arguments often overwhelms his prose (“Historians should note that American troops were badly outnumbered on the battlefields of Vietnam. Americans who fought there and survived should be proud of this. BUT…THE MEDIA CONTINUES TO STEAL OUR VALOR!”).
An unevenly executed memoir about the disastrous results of the Vietnam War and its aftermath.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-1457525339
Page Count: 484
Publisher: Dog Ear
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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