by Greg Cope White ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2015
A readable, inspiring memoir that displays a balanced, surprisingly reverent view of the Marine Corps and military service.
TV comedy writer White recalls the grueling yet confidence-building three-month Marine Corps boot camp training he endured as a still-closeted teenager in 1979.
Having moved numerous times throughout his childhood, at the age of 18, the author lived with his mother and brothers in Dallas. On a whim and with no future goals, White agreed to accompany his friend, a recent Air Force Academy cadet, and enlist in the Marine Corps. Physically unfit, admittedly effeminate, and considerably underweight, he was suddenly forced to share tight living quarters with dozens of straight young men and endure arduous physical endurance challenges, not to mention brutally demanding drill instructors. White lived in fear that he would be outed as gay, which could have led to a dishonorable discharge or, worse, a beating. Yet years before the passage of “don't ask, don't tell,” the boot camp proved to be a tremendously equalizing experience. As White eventually began to excel in areas he never anticipated, he also realized that each recruit, no matter the level of athletic prowess or supposed masculinity, was dealing with anxieties and shortcomings in a united quest to complete the course. Ultimately, the author’s fear gradually took a back seat to his more urgent desire to not only achieve a meaningful goal, but also gain acceptance. “I gained confidence from membership in a group I never thought I could belong to, a group I never thought would accept me,” he writes. “I adopted the same attitude they did; I did everything anyone did. I was a man with a job, a man who happened to be gay. Being a Marine is hard work and takes a lot of focus, practice, and dedication. I learned that I had to respect myself if I wanted others to respect me.” The author demonstrates that respect and delivers a heartening coming-of-age story.
A readable, inspiring memoir that displays a balanced, surprisingly reverent view of the Marine Corps and military service.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9967103-2-9
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Querelle Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2015
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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