McCabe is uniquely well qualified to write a Cagney biography: Not only was he the ghost on Cagney's autobiography, but he also was the authorized biographer of George M. Cohan (1973), whom Cagney famously portrayed in Yankee Doodle Dandy. McCabe draws heavily on his lengthy taped interviews with Cagney, with the result that this volume feels a bit like an extension of the actor's autobiography. Indeed, there are no major revelations here. Rather, this is a briskly written retelling of a somewhat familiar story—albeit a richer retelling than previous ones, thanks to the added texture that comes from Cagney's voice. Cagney grew up in relative poverty in New York City, the son of an alcoholic barman and a tough, no-nonsense mother (who taught her sons how to box). Some of the best moments in the book come in recounting Cagney's happy, hardscrabble youth. A compulsively modest and private man, he seems to have been ill-suited for the public life of a movie star; he took up acting because it paid well. He seldom attends Hollywood parties, spending most of his spare time reading and, later, painting and farming (his true ambition had always been to be a farmer). He brought a fiery intelligence to his acting, and McCabe, an ex-actor himself, has some nicely judged analyses of his subject's earlier work, concentrating on technique with an acuity that one seldom finds in star biographies. Regrettably, as the book goes on, McCabe offers fewer of these insights. One also wishes for more in-depth research on a wide range of matters, from the daily routine of the Warner Bros. film factory to the background of Cagney's family, from his legal wrangles with the studio to his political evolution from quasi-socialist to conservative Republican. The definitive Cagney biography has yet to be written, but this is a workmanlike and eminently readable effort. (100 photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Dec. 5, 1997
ISBN: 0-679-44607-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1997
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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