An often emotionally distant remembrance that still provides some informative historical insight.
A gay man recounts his life and professional career as a plant scientist in this debut memoir.
The author was born in 1927 into a hardworking Presbyterian family and spent his formative years in Illinois and Wisconsin. As a teenager, he writes, he experimented with sex with other boys in the neighborhood and at church camp. These early forays helped him feel less alone, as they let him know that there were others whose desires matched his own. In the Army and then in college, Sinclair found that a few things were consistent: There was always a gay subculture if one knew where to look, and he felt destined to always be a loner, as he was “afraid of being judged for being gay.” Then his life changed course when he was accepted into a doctoral program about plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin and he found his lifelong partner, Elmer “Al” Uselmann. He and Sinclair would spend the next 47 years together, until Uselmann died from lung cancer in 2001. Although Sinclair says that he intended his memoir as a tribute to Uselmann, this fact isn’t clear until the last few pages. Until then, he tells a mostly chronological and bland narrative of his own life, rushing through scenes, simplifying complex emotions, and failing to provide concrete details that would allow readers to better connect to the events. For example, at one point, he vaguely describes his relationship with a childhood friend who was also his first crush: “He and I became fast friends, playing together the entire summer. We bonded.” That said, Sinclair does offer some memorable moments by reminding readers that, until relatively recently, sex between men was illegal in many states. It also succeeds as a tribute when Sinclair writes that because of his relationship with Uselmann, “I will not hide this love.” (Includes occasional black-and-white photos.)
An often emotionally distant remembrance that still provides some informative historical insight.Pub Date: June 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5246-9628-3
Page Count: 136
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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