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HUNTER

THE STRANGE AND SAVAGE LIFE OF HUNTER S. THOMPSON

The author of Female Difficulties (1985) offers the second recent biographical love letter (see Paul Perry's Fear and Loathing, p. 1361) to America's notorious outlaw journalist. Unlike Perry, though, Carroll makes the fatal error of imitating her subject's outrageous and hyperbolic style. Carroll interlaces two narratives here—one, a chronological arrangement of oral biographical comments from interviewees; the other, a gonzo piece of fiction about the supposed author of the book, one Laetitia Snap. But Carroll, for all her tough-girl posturing, is no match for her hero. Her rambling interludes written in Snap's voice add up to a tiresome fantasy of innocence deflowered, rough sex, and lots of drugs—not to mention enslavement in a cesspool. Carroll's main narrative tells much the same story as Perry did about Thompson's violent Kentucky youth: the lying and brawling, the arrogance and swaggering, the intolerance and meanness. All of this is redeemed, of course, when Thompson discovers his true talents while writing for an Air Force newspaper. Despite much duplication of Perry, Carroll scores a few coups, most notably a damning interview with Thompson's ex-wife, who tells the sordid truth of her husband's physical abuse and her decline into alcoholism. Carroll's witnesses also debunk a few myths about Thompson's first major book, on the Hell's Angels, but she herself remains a fawning admirer throughout. The most prominent refuseniks among Carroll's potential witnesses were two who could have revealed the most: Thompson's editor, Jann Wenner, and his collaborator, Ralph Steadman. George McGovern, Margot Kidder, Philip Caputo, and George Plimpton stand out for their insightful comments. But the most telling remark is attributed to an anonymous Rolling Stone editor: ``It got old real quick.'' Brace yourselves: A third biography is on the way. Let's hope it's less awestruck than the first two. (Eight pages of b&w photographs—not seen.)

Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1993

ISBN: 0-525-93568-1

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1992

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NIGHT

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. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

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

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

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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