A raw, somber emotional journey that concludes with hope and a measure of forgiveness.
Drawing on letters and newspaper articles, former writing instructor and political advocate Moran re-creates her personal history and the events leading up to Sept. 11, 1976, when Croatian freedom fighters launched a terrorist attack in New York City that killed her husband.
In this moving memoir, the author recalls the panic gripping her as Walter Cronkite delivered the report of a Chicago-bound flight that had been hijacked by Zvonko and Julie Busic, a Croatian man and his American wife. The lockers at Grand Central subway station had also been bombed, and Moran’s husband, Brian, a member of the NYPD bomb squad, perished when the explosive suddenly detonated. The author provides details of life growing up in the late-1960s South Bronx with seven brothers and sisters, several of whom were physically abusive or drug-addled, an abusive father, and an elusive mother who raised her children with resentment. The evolution of her seven-year romance with Brian also resonates throughout. Moran recalls meeting the recently discharged Air Force serviceman when she was 21, and she was instantly intrigued and attracted after his bold declaration that they would be married someday. The author delicately yet unreservedly explores a widow’s experience: the necessary yet near-impossible task of reconciling a senseless death to a terrorist organization, the unanswered questions and insecurity, and the crushing reality of suddenly becoming a single parent to small children. The estrangement between Moran and her drug-addicted sister Gracie added further sorrow to her life, though she achieved a measure of closure from discovering exactly how her husband died and meticulously researching the hijackers, who were members of the Fighters for Free Croatia terrorist movement. In the closing chapters, the author delivers some engaging revelations. She remarried and, unable to reconcile the details of Brian’s death, filed a lawsuit against New York for gross negligence, which was eventually dismissed. She also began correspondence with one of the hijackers, who sought atonement and a chance to “unload emotionally.”
A raw, somber emotional journey that concludes with hope and a measure of forgiveness.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-944995-32-4
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Amberjack Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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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