A roughly chronological memoir of a life well-lived, full of specific portraits and vivid detail.
Off-the-cuff sketches from a rich, committed life.
Although he grew up among Hollywood royalty, the son of drama critic and screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz (Citizen Kane, etc.), author Mankiewicz (Remote Control: Television and the Manipulation of American Life, 1978, etc.) did not follow the conventional moviemaking trajectory of his father but instead became active in politics. In this meandering memoir, left perhaps incomplete and edited by Swerdlow with the author’s death in 2014, he records with straightforward humor and concise prose the highlights from his extraordinary career, beginning with his stint as a soldier in World War II and culminating (but hardly ending) as an aide to Robert Kennedy. Written as a series of vignettes about people in his life or jobs he held, alternating with somewhat longer meditations on aging or language, the work is an unusual memoir, pleasant and frequently hilarious. The author’s remarks about his father’s writing of Citizen Kane (later contested by the supporters of the director) will be especially revealing, as the mysterious word “Rosebud” probably came from the name of the cherished new bike stolen from Herman as a kid. Radicalized by his work in Latin America while employed by the Peace Corps in the 1960s, the author became a speechwriter for RFK and a good friend, and his account of Kennedy’s important speeches and his “hold on people’s imaginations” are moving. He met with Fidel Castro many times in “some mild cloak-and-dagger” incidents at the behest of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Mankiewicz also delineates his work for NPR (he was president from 1977 to 1983), specifically his advocating for the hiring of women correspondents. The author’s later work in a public relations firm allowed him to indulge his love of information and opinion in the form of lobbying for favorite or quirky causes. Throughout, his writing is sharp and fearless.
A roughly chronological memoir of a life well-lived, full of specific portraits and vivid detail.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-07064-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
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
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
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