If diligence alone could yield good biography, Business Week correspondent DeGeorge would have produced a blockbuster on high- profile tycoon H. Wayne Huizenga. Unfortunately, the result of her considerable labors is a bloated, often gushy jumble of raw data. The grandson of a Dutch immigrant who set up shop as a trash hauler in the Chicago area, Huizenga (who turns 58 later this year) entered the same trade in South Florida's Broward County. In league with midwestern family members, the Sunbelt transplant parlayed his one-truck outfit into a sizable equity stake in the multinational disposal firm now known as WMX Technologies. Tired of the constant travel demanded by his executive post, Huizenga left the garbage game in 1982. He dabbled in any number of offbeat pursuits (bottled water, lawn care, portable toilets), but proved a decidedly restless retiree. Huizenga soon went active with Blockbuster Entertainment, a small chain of videocassette-rental shops that he turned into a show-biz power in less than seven years. Since he sold out last year, the major-league baseball, football, and hockey franchises he has bought or launched in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area have kept him occupied to a limited extent. But it's unlikely that the relentlessly enterprising Huizenga will be long absent from the commercial mainstream. At last report, he and his brother- in-law were organizing a new environmental-services/waste-disposal outfit whose revenues they intend to expand rapidly via strategic acquisitions. DeGeorge all but buries Huizenga in a welter of tedious particulars, although she glides quickly by his frequent brushes with regulatory authorities, invariably giving him the benefit of any ethical doubt. For all the detail she has amassed in her kitchen-sink narrative, moreover, DeGeorge never comes to grips with what makes Wayne run. (8 pages photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1995
ISBN: 0-471-12269-6
Page Count: 533
Publisher: Wiley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1995
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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