Another who-cares addition to the already groaning shelves of tell-alls. (10 photos)
Sprengnether (English/Univ. of Minnesota) grapples with unresolved grief expressed in the unlikely setting of a movie theater. During a summer boat trip on the Mississippi in 1951, young Madelon’s brother, showing off new swimming strokes learned at the neighborhood YMCA, was suddenly carried out of his depth. Their father entered the water and managed to push the boy toward shore before he himself was drowned. Concealing their sorrow—during the ’50s, it was important to “show the world a good face”—the family never actually mourned. It wasn’t until 1969, when Sprengnether was six months pregnant and living with her first husband in snowbound Vermont that the initial cracks appeared in her controlled facade. While teaching a course on film, she began to sob uncontrollably at the climax of Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali. This experience was repeated several times at various movies. Examining The Piano, The Cement Garden, and Fearless, among other films, the author tries to understand the meaning and form of her bereavement. Unfortunately, her musings never quite capture the reader’s imagination or emotions. It doesn’t help when she distastefully cranks up the volume with frequent disquieting references to sibling incest . . . only not really, as she concurs with former President Clinton’s definition of sex.
Another who-cares addition to the already groaning shelves of tell-alls. (10 photos)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-55597-358-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2001
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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