Well-researched, but vulgar and plodding.
Bloated, stumbling account of Janet Auchincloss, her family, and the social world that produced Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
It is certainly curious that for all of America’s obsession with its de facto queen, Jackie Kennedy, there has been so little said of the Queen Mother. This could be attributed to Janet Auchincloss’s social set, which shunned vulgar publicity, but today’s curious reader need no longer suffer in ignorance; Pottker (Crisis in Candyland, 1995) has dragged the woman, warts and all, into the spotlight. With the assistance of Auchincloss’s two sons and countless relatives and staff, Pottker moves from the roots of the Lee and Auchincloss families through the lives of Janet and Hughdie and the world that sheltered Jackie until she married Jack. The work is remarkably detailed—and surprisingly drear. Although for the most part (following a deadly pair of opening chapters), the story moves along at a steady clip, the author has hobbled the narrative with over-reporting, reducing her dramatic cast of characters—Black Jack Bouvier, iron-willed Janet, mercurial Jack and Jackie—to a collection of minutiae. From the very beginning, the author lacks discernment; it’s as if she determined to include every detail recorded in her research, from how Janet wore her stockings to the style of young Jackie’s headboards (they had cane inserts). Equal space is accorded to the story of Jackie’s second miscarriage and an account of the decor of Janet Jr.’s debutante ball. This is an odd editorial choice, but the author’s judgment moves from questionable to shocking when she informs us that immediately following JFK’s assassination, Jackie “used the bathroom and noticed, again, that she had her period.” Although Pottker has succeeded in evoking the wealth and lifestyle of her subjects, she has done little to bring their relationship to life.
Well-researched, but vulgar and plodding.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-26607-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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