An absorbing, thoughtful, and joyful account of a business executive’s remarkable rise.
A high school dropout from a small town in Nebraska creates a successful, multimillion-dollar startup in this debut autobiography.
“As they say in Texas, he can’t eat you and he can’t take your birthday,” marketing executive Ellermeier reassured herself before facing the new boss who demoted her. Colleagues also affected by the company’s restructuring convinced her to start a new business with them, but in the early 2000s after the dot-com crash, lenders were nervous. So was the author, as she struggled in her new role as CEO of Lingualcare, traveling abroad, fundraising, training, demonstrating her product—innovative customized orthodontic braces—and fighting ghosts from her past. A go-getter from the day she hawked Christmas cards door to door in the 1970s to buy a record player, she nevertheless endured a rape, dropped out of high school, found herself briefly homeless, and overcame alcoholism. Starting her new company, Ellermeier recalls that she was very clever in thinking on her feet and turning around bad situations but she still lacked confidence. She bluffed and blustered her way through mostly male opposition, despite her fears of bankruptcy. This “will require a real CEO, at best you might be qualified to run marketing,” sneered a potential investor, sounding like the author’s hypercritical, overbearing mother. Ellermeier fought all of the negativity and managed to hold onto her goal: a product that improved people’s lives and the sale of her mature venture. Readers of this memoir who think that government should be run like a business will discover a startup is deeply political: Activities include hiring friends and family, conducting backroom deals with competitors, and schmoozing with sharks. Yet at a startup’s core, the author maintains, is hard work, a call to service, and integrity. Ellermeier convincingly recounts meetings and re-creates dialogue to show how exhausting and precarious entrepreneurship truly is. Unlike so many difficult childhood narratives, this work delicately entwines the author’s personal and professional experiences to demonstrate why she makes certain decisions later. Her humor (with chapter headings like “So That’s a No” and “Emergencies of the Prada Kind”) is tender and smart, and this book becomes a mini-mentorship for future entrepreneurs.
An absorbing, thoughtful, and joyful account of a business executive’s remarkable rise.Pub Date: June 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73231-180-0
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Mill Camp Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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