by Gene Wilder ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2005
Strong, tender, and revealing.
An actor’s life, as told in flashback.
Gene Wilder is familiar to the American public as the mad scientist in Young Frankenstein and the kooky Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Not so familiar is Jerry Silberman: that is, Gene Wilder himself in his pre-acting days. This “autobiography” is really more about Silberman than Wilder, who uses a rather unusual device to tell Jerry’s story: his visits to psychiatrist Margie Waller become a filter for his memories of life as Jerry Silberman. The young Jerry is an introspective boy with a gift for comedy who can make his mother laugh—she has a heart condition, and Jerry tries to relieve any stress that might aggravate it. His early reminiscences seem focused equally on acting and on encounters with the opposite sex, although there’s a bizarre little ramble about his compulsion to pray, which is humorous in a pathos-filled way. The acting memories make sense—Wilder entertainingly relates how his earl acting experiences formed a foundation for his successful acting career. Surprisingly enough, his tales of sexual liaisons with young women are not played for broad humor but are told in a rather matter-of-fact, straightforward style, with tiny nuggets of humor buried deep. These opening pages set the tone for the rest, where the focus remains on acting and relationships, all told in the same matter-of-fact style, with subtle snippets of humor sprinkled throughout. It’s not an autobiography in the usual sense of the word, but it does give the reader an understanding of Jerry Silberman’s deliberate transformation into Gene Wilder. Wilder is quite candid about his life, not flinching at all when it comes to sharing intimate details. Especially poignant is the section on his romance with Gilda Radner, the comic actress who became his wife and was to die of cancer (It’s Always Something, 1989). Wilder evidently wrote the book himself, and did well; it’s an honest, affecting look at his life.
Strong, tender, and revealing.Pub Date: March 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-312-33706-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2005
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
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
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
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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