More than 35 years after leaving office, Brownell recalls serving as campaign adviser and attorney general for the man ``head and shoulders above all the other political figures I have ever encountered'': Dwight D. Eisenhower. In many ways, Brownell's autobiography—with an assist from Burke (Political Science/University of Vermont)—could serve as the credo of the ``Wall Street wing'' of socially moderate, internationalist Republicans once epitomized by Thomas Dewey (whose two runs for the presidency Brownell guided as campaign manager) and Nelson Rockefeller. In several years as a New York State assemblyman in the 1930's, the reforming young lawyer and Nebraska native learned not to ``denounce one's opponents too strongly or two personally''; indeed, his only real pique here is vented at fiercely partisan Democrats Harry Truman and FDR, including the dark hint that the latter might have lost the 1944 election but for coverups of his health and of alleged negligence at Pearl Harbor. Although these memoirs also cover the Dewey campaigns and Brownell's 62 years of private law practice, the most compelling sections deal with the Eisenhower years. Brownell is most revealing about the hush-hush communications and climactic secret meeting that led the general to seek the 1952 GOP nomination; how Ike came to appoint Earl Warren to the Supreme Court; and the author's own key support for the awakening civil-rights movement. Throughout, Brownell displays intelligence, respect for public service, and shrewdness in assessing how his nonpolitician boss built a cohesive team and retained the affection of the American people. But his narrative is inhibited by a lawyerly reluctance to reveal anything too damaging to his ``client'' (for example, Brownell's contention that Ike was not trying to dump Nixon by offering him a Cabinet post is pure spin-control). Despite the reticence: an important memoir likely to bolster Eisenhower's evolving reputation for above-the-fray, ``hidden- hand'' leadership. (Twenty-six b&w photos—not seen)
Pub Date: May 3, 1993
ISBN: 0-7006-0590-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Univ. Press of Kansas
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
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
SEEN & HEARD
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