This is a tale of two bubbes, or Jewish grandmothers, two ordinary women who have both arrived at the age of 93, only to be torn between their love of life and their knowledge that death is imminent. Tessie, Horowitz's paternal grandmother, and Pearlie, her maternal bubbe, seem at first like typical, indeed stereotypical, Jewish grandmothers. Alternately cute and irritating, they share homely wisdom and recipes for stuffed cabbage and matzoh balls, and their life stories—from immigrant to young married, working to help support the family, widowhood—are not as original as Horowitz seems to think. But as the narrative progressess, Pearlie's and Tessie's inner strengths emerge, and the very ordinariness of their difficult lives creates a solid link for readers to hold on to. Pearlie has outlived her son, Steve, who died in his 50s of a heart attack (and to whom she continues to write letters). Tessie, too, may outlive her son; Horowitz's father is being treated for mesothelioma, a usually fatal lung cancer. Pearlie still carries the shame of her husband Moe's drinking (``Waves of anger alternate with the impulse to cover up for him,'' Horowitz writes). And Tessie literally held her mother in her own arms when the older women died at home. Despite the joy they take in their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, both women are left wondering why they are still alive when so many whom they have loved are gone. But live they do: Pearlie, until recently, performed with a dancing group called the Dolls; Tessie is a fierce player of gin rummy. Horowitz emphasizes their different personalities: Pearlie is generous in expressing her love of family and of life. Tessie is more stoic; she is stunned when Horowitz says she should tell her ailing son she loves him—she assumes it's understood. In her portraits of these two very human women, Horowitz has written a loving tribute to the power of sheer survival and the wisdom that derives from it.
Pub Date: June 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-684-81395-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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