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CREEKER

A WOMAN'S JOURNEY

A memoir of growing up in, and then living outside of, eastern Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains, by an author proud of her heritage. Linda Sue Preston Scott DeRosier may not be as famous as Loretta Lynn, Appalachia’s most beloved daughter, but her journey has been as long as, and perhaps even more unlikely than, that of the “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” Born at home in 1941, raised in the rural community of Two-Mile Creek, and finding herself still unmarried at 17, she went to college on a scholarship and, among many other experiences (marriage, work, raising a son), discovered that what she truly craved was knowledge. Now a professor of psychology at Rocky Mountain College, she offers this book as her tribute to the family who nurtured her and the community that, though DeRosier lives in Montana, she still calls home. Her hillbilly-influenced syntax (for which a full and entertaining glossary is provided) shines through the palimpsests of higher education and feminism, giving readers a hint of what life as a “creeker” (i.e., one who grew up in the more rural “hollers” of Appalachia) must have sounded like. Though her childhood was in some ways characteristic of those highly intelligent women who grew up stifled by the “50s and discovered themselves in the “60s, there is nothing typical about this memoir, which is full of not only the language but also the values, humor, and perseverance of DeRosier’s family. The sheer amount of physical work, as portrayed in her descriptions of the routine of chores and cooking and farming, provide quite a contrast to the Leave It to Beaver image of the typical “50s suburban household. By the time she writes that “there is a comin—-home spirit that is an essential part of growing up in Appalachia,” that much, and quite a bit more, is abundantly clear. Rich in both language and history, enjoyable, informative, and “sharper—n ary tack.” (32 b&w photos, unseen)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-8131-2123-X

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Univ. Press of Kentucky

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999

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NIGHT

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. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

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

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

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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