Dramatic and laugh-out-loud funny, beautifully written and deftly constructed, deeply affecting in its honest portrayal of...
Father and son jointly relate their experiences when the younger man joins the Marines.
To escape Dad's constant meddling, John leaves suburban Boston after high-school graduation in 1999 and heads for Marine Corps training on Parris Island, South Carolina. Novelist father Frank (Saving Grandma, 1997, etc.) expresses concern and embarrassment; the Schaeffers are the affluent sort who send their kids to college, not the military. Personal narratives and letters by both men chronicle the period from August through November, when John graduates. Both are gifted writers: the father open about his flaws, the son a skillful and humorous observer of Corps life. Life on PI begins with complete disorientation: yelling, panic, constant exercise, long sleepless stretches, not enough food, and no time references bewilder the recruits. Back home, Dad has to defend his son's choice to insensitive neighbors. Things gradually change. John accepts the discipline from his four drill instructors, succeeds with the physical discipline, and loves the intense unity. Raised in Switzerland, Frank develops a patriotic burst for the US, expressed in an appreciation for our freedoms and applied to local political issues. He befriends other Marine families and comes to revile Bill Clinton. John loses 12 pounds and fantasizes about Burger King. The recruits lack the time and energy to make friendships, but they form a protective bond. To graduate, they must remain calm in a gas chamber, survive a swim test with full gear, and pass a difficult rifle exam. In the final pages, John is doing advanced training in Florida, and Frank’s planned visit is derailed by 9/11. Though worried after the terrorist attack, he writes, “At least I knew that I could look the men and women in uniform in the eye. My son was one of them.”
Dramatic and laugh-out-loud funny, beautifully written and deftly constructed, deeply affecting in its honest portrayal of the authors’ passions: a stunning achievement.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7867-1097-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
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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 standout immigrant coming-of-age story.
In her first nonfiction book, novelist Grande (Dancing with Butterflies, 2009, etc.) delves into her family’s cycle of separation and reunification.
Raised in poverty so severe that spaghetti reminded her of the tapeworms endemic to children in her Mexican hometown, the author is her family’s only college graduate and writer, whose honors include an American Book Award and International Latino Book Award. Though she was too young to remember her father when he entered the United States illegally seeking money to improve life for his family, she idolized him from afar. However, she also blamed him for taking away her mother after he sent for her when the author was not yet 5 years old. Though she emulated her sister, she ultimately answered to herself, and both siblings constantly sought affirmation of their parents’ love, whether they were present or not. When one caused disappointment, the siblings focused their hopes on the other. These contradictions prove to be the narrator’s hallmarks, as she consistently displays a fierce willingness to ask tough questions, accept startling answers, and candidly render emotional and physical violence. Even as a girl, Grande understood the redemptive power of language to define—in the U.S., her name’s literal translation, “big queen,” led to ridicule from other children—and to complicate. In spelling class, when a teacher used the sentence “my mamá loves me” (mi mamá me ama), Grande decided to “rearrange the words so that they formed a question: ¿Me ama mi mamá? Does my mama love me?”
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6177-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
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BOOK REVIEW
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