Gartner calls this a first-of-its-kind work of “psycho-journalism.” If this is the prototype, let’s hope production is...
A bizarre attempt to uncover what makes the 42nd president tick.
Employing a diagnosis he explored in The Hypomanic Edge (2005), Gartner (Psychology/Johns Hopkins Univ.) identifies Bill Clinton as “hypomanic,” a personality disorder he defines as characterized by excessive energy, creativity and charisma. The author relentlessly scatters “Look, that was hypomanic!” moments throughout the book as he traces Clinton’s life, but readers will soon conclude that these shed little light on what kind of president he was or man he is. Gartner promises that his book will treat its subject as a therapist would a patient. Since he never spent any actual time with Clinton, the “therapy” consists of a ham-handed and superficial accounting of how Clinton acted out childhood dramas during the central moments of his life, including the infamous rendezvous with Monica Lewinsky. The author fails to sustain even this slight approach: Clipping passages from the many accounts of the Clinton presidency, he assembles little more than a compilation. Gartner asserts early on that he is fond of the former president, but that hardly explains this hagiography. The gushing text explains away the former president’s missteps as misunderstandings, his political failures as the failure of the citizenry to understand how someone so smart and empathetic really just had their best interests at heart. Gossipy analysis and ’90s nostalgia make this silly book something of a guilty pleasure, but the author certainly hasn’t provided anything new or groundbreaking.
Gartner calls this a first-of-its-kind work of “psycho-journalism.” If this is the prototype, let’s hope production is halted.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36976-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2008
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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