An absorbing and suspenseful family remembrance.
In this richly detailed memoir, a woman revisits the murder of her mother more than half a century ago.
Campbell begins her story on the day of her mother Mary’s death: March 8, 1961, when she was 11 years old and her family lived in a farmhouse in Kent, Washington, just outside of Seattle. The first chapter moves through the day of the murder but stops short of the crime itself, leaving readers in suspense as the author traces her maternal and fraternal lines. What initially seems like a true-crime whodunit effectively becomes a history of settlement, hardship, and opportunity in the American West of the 19th and 20th centuries. Campbell goes on to meticulously sketch a family portrait, lingering with affection and reverence on her descriptions of her mother: “Mary was nick-named ‘Mary Sunshine’ by her sisters because every morning she would run to all the windows and pull back the curtains to let the warmth and light of the morning sun pour into the house.” The Campbell family moved frequently, and the author chronicles her father’s career trajectory, which culminated in a “top-paying job as an engineer at Boeing.” Religion is another steady theme, as the family belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is a key element of their identity; “I am a descendent of polygamy,” Campbell declares at one point. The author eventually picks up the pieces of her mother’s murder in a chapter entitled “March 8, 1961: Part II”; from there, the book turns into a police procedural and courtroom drama. The murderer is found, but unanswered questions linger to this day.
The author, who co-wrote this memoir with her cousin Stroschein, quite capably turns a story of family tragedy into a suspenseful narrative. Some of the early chapters get a bit bogged down by backstory, but the parts that focus on Mary, her immediate family, and the circumstances and aftermath of her death move along briskly. However, Campbell clearly has a goal beyond simply spinning a gripping yarn; she also seeks to memorialize her mother. In this regard, she’s successful, as Mary is vividly presented as a loving and playful presence. The prose is steady and efficient throughout, which makes the occasional moments of figurative language stand out, as when Campbell writes, “My mother’s death would leave a tear in my soul I could not heal.” She also includes her mother’s letters about another painful part of the family’s history: her father’s infidelity and her parents’ separation. Mary’s distinct voice comes through in these missives, allowing readers to see her even more clearly. At times, the book is tonally inconsistent, moving from genealogical study to murder mystery to loving homage. Campbell is irrevocably drawn to the central crime, which proves to be as strange and horrible as the first chapter promises. The revelations don’t disappoint, but a sense of closure and justice proves elusive. The inclusion of several of Mary’s drawings offers a poignant endnote.
An absorbing and suspenseful family remembrance.Pub Date: March 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-950294-02-2
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Elk River Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
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
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.
In this debut memoir, Bahamian millionaire Bastian offers insight into building a business.
The author was a millionaire by the time he was 19, an impressive feat considering he began his working life filling stockpots and rolling napkins in his father’s Nassau restaurant, a locals’ hole-in-the-wall far from the city’s tourist hotels. “In many ways, I started ten steps behind the starting line in a world where opportunities felt few and far between,” writes Bastian in his introduction. A poor student with a gambler’s risk tolerance and a salesman’s eye for an unserved market, the author dropped out of college to launch his own satellite installation business—the first of its kind in the Bahamas—eventually expanding into prepaid phones and other electronics. With this book, Bastian uses his personal experiences to illustrate the steps aspiring entrepreneurs should consider when building their own empires. “My goal isn’t just to tell my story,” he explains; “it’s to provide you with a starting point, a strategy, and the encouragement you need to take your first step toward something bigger.” The book alternates between memoiristic chapters describing the author’s youth and career and instructional chapters outlining the best practices to “become a lion” (his preferred metaphor for a brave, risk-taking captain of industry). From evaluating one’s skill set and choosing a suitable goal to the practicalities of regulation and taxes, Bastian walks the reader through the complicated processes of starting and maintaining a successful enterprise. While much of the advice is of the boilerplate variety, the author offers it with clarity and candor, devoting an entire chapter, for example, on how to fail productively. It is the biographical material that lends his advice unusual weight—Bastian’s stories of flying back and forth between the Bahamas and Miami to personally import satellite dishes are fascinating enough to stand on their own. Readers may be unable to replicate his success, but there is no denying that his tale is inspiring.
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9798891882485
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Advantage Media Group
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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