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BEFORE THE DAWN

Name: BEFORE THE DAWN
Author: Gerry Adams
ISBN: 0-688-14312-1

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

by Gerry Adams ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1997

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In this compelling memoir of his early life, the president of Sinn FÇin, the political wing of the IRA, recalls the development of the modern ``Troubles'' in Northern Ireland and his own central role in them, culminating in the tragic hunger strike by incarcerated IRA members in 1981. Born in 1948, Adams vividly recalls the Belfast of his early life as a coldly sectarian place. It was polarized between the loyalist majority, many of whose members belonged to anti-Catholic organizations like the Orange Order, and impoverished Catholics, who were unable to speak freely, were not allowed the right to display nationalist symbols, and were often denied equal opportunity in housing and employment. Adams traces his growing political consciousness to routine events in Northern Ireland: The annual parades of unionists on July 12, the banning of republican activities, and the activities of violent unionist paramilitary organizations like the B Specials. Dissatisfaction over a lack of democracy found expression in protests over grim state-sponsored housing units and the banning of nationalist parades. The unionist forces reacted violently, and the situation exploded into civil war. Adams describes his growing radicalization, his leadership role in the political wing of the IRA, and the British use of secret courts to convict republicans. Adams was himself a political prisoner, one of the first in the infamous Long Kesh, and underwent torture at the hands of the British authorities, which he describes graphically. Adams concludes his account by recording the dramatic hunger strikes of Bobby Sands and others in 198081, which he initially resisted but which he now recognizes as having revitalized the nationalist movement. Adams was elected a British MP in 1983, part of a pattern of Sinn FÇin electoral success that resulted in the recent Anglo-Irish agreement. An eloquent and persuasive presentation of recent Irish history. (For the life of an earlier Irish rebel, see John Mackay's Michael Collins, p. 1656.)

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-688-14312-1

Page Count: 356

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | POLITICAL & ROYALTY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

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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.

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor will it to readers of Krakauer's narrative. (4 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)