A good fit for every runner’s library.
Longtime runner and journalist Hanc (The Essential Marathoner, 1996, etc.) dashes off a history-studded travelogue about his participation in The Last Marathon.
That’s what the Antarctica Marathon was called back in 1995, when Marathon Tours and Travel owner Tom Gilligan founded the race. The Last Marathon was an appealing hook for runners, who had a natural fetish for conquering exotic terrain. But Antarctica? If the brutal swings in temperature don’t sound intimidating, consider being subdued by “the gluey Antarctic mud.” Nonetheless, Hanc decided to take the challenge and enter the race on the occasion of its tenth anniversary and his 50th birthday. Only four miles into it, he writes, “I knew. This was really going to suck.” Soon, exhausted and driven by raw adrenaline, his mantra became, “Why am I doing this?” He wasn’t the only one. Some of the frustrated runners simply “slowed down, took their time, submitted to the mud, and tried to enjoy the bizarreness of the whole thing.” The race isn't necessarily about breaking records, and the actual marathon often pales in comparison to the challenge of simply getting there. In 2001, the sea was so violent on the voyage through the Drake Passage that the marathon was canceled. Undaunted, participants ran 422 laps aboard the ship. Weaving together the histories of early Antarctic exploration and modern marathons, Hanc includes sections on the battle over possession of the continent and the noticeable effects of global warming and increased tourism. Interviewing runners present and past, most of them ordinary people facing an extraordinary challenge, Hanc digs for the answer to one key question: “Why anyone would want to run a marathon in what is frequently called the Last Place on Earth?”
A good fit for every runner’s library.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-55652-738-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 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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