An inspired, if uneven, account of the power of love and the casualty of war.
In Burroughs’ work of historical fiction, a pair of destined lovers finds their blossoming romance cut short by a burgeoning war of epic proportions.
Spencer and Elaine were meant to be the greatest of lovers and the best of friends; however, their life together must take a backseat to Spencer’s naval service aboard the small but capable USS LCS 52 in the South Pacific alongside best buddy Larry "Pops" Cullen. Spencer is a modest yet brave man, undeterred by the overwhelming sense of death that surrounds him each and every day on the ship: “I’m afraid I’ll never make the kind of hero that Hollywood manages to produce. All the same, everyone did his job. There was plenty of adrenaline flowing.” Weaved together through first-hand accounts from those who knew him best, letters, logs and snippets referenced from historical books, Spencer’s brother and author Burroughs creates an epic tale about love and loss amid the backdrop of World War II that retains a quaint, intimate atmosphere. Burroughs makes the tale as manageable as possible while allowing the material to flow like a novel should. There are gaps in the writing that display an inherent lack of precision when it comes to molding a story from various elements—the narrative seems to incongruously shift from informational, fact-based research to fictional creation—but, overall, the tale is a compelling one. Working on one of the smallest gun boats in the entire United States Navy, Spencer is a true hero of the everyday sort. He’s an interesting character, made even more compelling by the fact that he’s based on a real figure. The dialogue rings true throughout and will keep readers engaged for the duration despite the book’s occasional flaws.
An inspired, if uneven, account of the power of love and the casualty of war.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2011
ISBN: 978-1460956953
Page Count: 332
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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