Top jockey Krone's memoir might better be titled ``Everything I Need to Know I Learned at the Racetrack.'' Krone, 31, is the ``winningest female jockey'' ever—and one of the winningest jockeys, period. She (with Richardson, coauthor of Feel No Fear, 1994) opens dramatically with her ankle-crushing fall at Saratoga in 1993, right on the heels of her greatest triumph, at the Belmont Stakes, where she became the first woman to win a Triple Crown race. Her spritely nature comes through in this honest—maybe too honest—book, but so does a huge dose of sentimentality. We learn of her gratitude to and love for all the friends and professionals, from trainer John Forbes to jockey Mike Smith, who have taught her love, loyalty, sacrifice, and what it means to be a jockey. This saccharine quality, a kind of naive openness, comes through even as she relates her many adversities- -her parents' divorce when she was 13, teenage loneliness, her mother's bout with ovarian cancer, and the trial of being a woman in a man's sport. A rare exception is the rousing chapter in which she relates her physical battles with male colleagues who use their whips as offensive weapons—like Miguel Rujano, who whips her across the face after she wins a race. One can't help regretting the lesson she learned from the Monmouth Park steward, who told her to act like ``a lady'' at the track. Ultimately, the book's only intersting lesson is how she learned to win a race—how she strategizes and gets to know the personality of each of her mounts. Here she illuminates the unique quality of horse racing: the woman/horse bond, the melding of talents that wins the race. Much of this book could be the autobiography of any young woman. It's Krone's passion for riding that distinguishes her—she should stick to the horsey stuff.
Pub Date: May 5, 1995
ISBN: 0-316-50477-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
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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