An important writer with nothing new to say.
After traversing many different genres, from literary fiction (Dancing on Tisha B’Av, 1990) to academic mysteries (the Nick Hoffman series) and critical essays (Journeys and Arrivals, 1996), Raphael returns to nonfiction, drawing together 12 pieces about being a gay, Jewish writer.
The best essays are the first two, “Writing a Jewish Life” and “Okemos, Michigan.” Both were published in Journeys and Arrivals (“Writing” appeared under the title “To Be a Jew”), both have been widely anthologized, as is also true of several other pieces in the collection. Raphael fails to rework this disparate material into a seamless work of narrative nonfiction; indeed, he apparently couldn’t even be bothered to smooth out the transitions from essay to essay. In the first piece, for example, we read that one of his two stepsons is a Hillel director; a few pages later, the stepsons are in high school and college. In addition to such minor but jarring inconsistencies, the book’s other major problem is repetition. The fifth essay, “Writing Something Real,” rehashes the same themes as the title piece, and in many places, the two are repeated word for word. In both, Raphael explains that when he began to write, he avoided any mention of Judaism or the Holocaust. “My writing was as far away from myself as possible,” he tells us (twice), “and by that I mean as far away from my world, my own observations, my own truest knowledge.” Then, under the guidance of a college writing teacher, Raphael began to write a story that was honest and good. Now, in two essays, he exclaims, “I was terrified—I was alive.” To hear it once is great. Twice, it’s insulting. If we are going to take the time to read Raphael’s musings, can’t he take the time to revise and edit them?
An important writer with nothing new to say.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7867-1649-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2006
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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