Magic's second autobiography, far richer than his first (Magic, 1983), for this one (written with Novak, coauthor of autobiographies of Nancy Reagan, Lee Iacocca, etc.) details not only the prestidigitation of the NBA's greatest point guard but also the stunning 1991 revelation of HIV infection that turned Johnson into a world celebrity. To get right to what everyone is waiting for, Magic talks candidly about his sexual promiscuity and his disease. Squelching rumors that he's gay, he declares that ``my pleasure was being with women''—droves of them. ``I was stupid not to take precautions,'' he says. The terrible weeks surrounding his November 7th retirement from basketball get day-by-day coverage, as he reels upon learning of his infection; is buoyed by the love of family, fellow athletes, and fans; and makes his dramatic appearance on Arsenio Hall. Magic raps George Bush for waffling on AIDS policy, and he pledges that ``I'm going all out to fight'' the disease. The poignancy of his new role is underscored by the amazing years that preceded it. Strict, loving parents and a childhood of nonstop basketball blossom into a decade of NBA greatness. The epiphanies tumble out: rise of the Laker dynasty, war with the Celtics, MVP award. The Magic carpet ride goes on after retirement: the 1992 All-Star Game, where Magic proved that HIV-positive and athletic brilliance can go together; the Olympic Dream Team. Even as the book goes to press, he ponders rejoining the NBA, but knows that his work is on a different court now: ``I started working for God's agenda. I believe He's got a mission for me—to help make society more aware, and to get people to care.'' Filled with energy and good will: a small miracle, given the circumstances, but just what one expects from Magic. A lock for a fast-break to the bestseller lists. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-679-41569-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1992
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
© 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.
