A true rags-to-riches story told with fervor and variety.
The 25-year-old Chinese piano prodigy chronicles his coming of age.
Lang was born in Shenyang to parents whose musical ambitions were thwarted by the Cultural Revolution, which suffocated all intellectual and artistic pursuits. He could read musical notes before he could read letters and willingly accepted the pressure from his parents to be “Number One”; he understood that, like other members of the one-child generation, he “carried the burdens and blessings of their hopes and dreams.” Having won his city’s ten-and-under piano competition at age five, Lang moved to Beijing with his father, their sights set on the city’s prestigious conservatory. His mother stayed behind to earn the family’s meager living, and Lang acutely felt the years-long separation. When his new teacher declared he had no talent, his father suffered a frenzied breakdown, shouting that Lang should kill himself rather than live with the shame of not making good on his family’s sacrifices. Four months of boycotting the piano and giving his father the silent treatment ensued before the boy agreed to practice again. He placed first among 3,000 at the conservatory’s audition and went on to win international competitions in Germany and Japan. At 14, he received a scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he adjusted to the American system favoring performances over competitions, and embraced U.S. teens’ freedom. Two years later, he caught his big break in a brilliant substitute performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. A standing ovation in St. Petersburg, a debut at Carnegie Hall and a bestselling recording with Daniel Barenboim followed. The prose crafted with veteran co-author Ritz (Grace After Midnight, 2007, etc.) lacks the sophistication of Lang’s playing, but it gratefully highlights his parents’ devotion and communicates his joy while performing.
A true rags-to-riches story told with fervor and variety.Pub Date: July 15, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-385-52456-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2008
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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