An impeccable account of the politics, civics and devotion behind the Adams marriage.
The Pulitzer Prize– and National Book Award–winning author presents a vivid and insightful portrait of John and Abigail Adams.
A telling aspect of John’s nature was his confidence (some might say arrogance) in the fact that his life story would be an important part of the political history of the American Revolution. Because of this prescience, he and Abigail preserved a massive number of documents, including their own personal correspondence. Ellis (American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic, 2007, etc.) makes good use of this archive, reconstructing a detailed chronology of the Adams marriage. From the beginning, Abigail was an intelligent and loyal partner, privy to every aspect of John's involvement in the nascent Revolution; the author describes Abigail as a vital “ballast” to John's excitability and mood swings. As his place in the new government strengthened, John was often called away from their Massachusetts home, a circumstance that brought much sadness to the couple but provides historians with intimate letters that the two sent each other throughout each separation. In these, John and Abigail discuss everything from domestic issues to politics to their relationship, displaying the unusually egalitarian and loving partnership they shared. John adored Abigail’s confidence and intellect, and Abigail was proud to support and advise her famous husband as he navigated his remarkably productive political career. This special connection lasted for more than 50 years and survived a litany of domestic hardships amid the political successes, including the heartbreak of witnessing their adult children (excepting John Quincy) devolve into poverty, depression and alcoholism. Despite this, writes Ellis, “Abigail and John remained resolute, infinitely resilient, the invulnerable center that would always hold.” The author’s beautiful writing draws the reader wholly into this relationship, bringing new perspective to the historical importance of this enduring love story.
An impeccable account of the politics, civics and devotion behind the Adams marriage.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-307-26962-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
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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