by Mark Munger ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2021
An often humorous, occasionally poignant reflection on growing up in the 1960s and ’70s.
A retired judge and baby boomer reflects on his adolescent years.
A former District Court judge, Munger has spent his retirement writing an impressive number of books, from mysteries and short stories to biographies and essay collections. In this, his most intimate work, he looks introspectively at his years as a child, teenager, and young adult in 1960s and ’70s Duluth, Minnesota. Written as a collection of essays and a “string of vignettes” rather than a straightforward autobiographical narrative, the author emphasizes that his “pure, unadulterated visions of the past” emerge straight from his memory. With this disclaimer that specific dates, events, and names may be off, Munger recollects delightful childhood events that are nostalgic rather than maudlin. Like many White adults of the 1950s, Munger’s parents benefited from the postwar economic boom that afforded their children a carefree, sheltered youth spent playing sports, riding bikes, swimming, and ice-skating. Essays cover an almost clichéd collection of stories about the life of a 1960s White kid from a small city, with entire chapters devoted to baseball games, childhood antics (“Low Crimes and Misdemeanors”), and humorous anecdotes such as “puking” on the school principal. In Munger’s wistful retelling, seemingly every group of kids in Duluth had their own makeshift fort, shack, or clubhouse (“sanctuaries from scrutiny”) that evolved from imaginary playhouses to storage units for Playboy magazines, cigarettes, and other teenage “contraband.” Munger hailed from Bob Dylan’s hometown, so there is, of course, the obligatory essay on “Sex, Drugs, & Rock and Roll” outlining the author’s own escapades in the early 1970s.
Though often lighthearted, the memoir doesn’t shy away from honest portrayals of his “obsessive/compulsive” mother and absent father, a personal injury lawyer who was constantly chasing “a big payday.” In one particularly unsettling passage, the author recalls his father declaring to him in the middle of a family fight that his mother was “having an affair with a fancy-assed Twin Cities Doctor.” His mother proceeded to describe “all the women” her husband had slept with. Students of mid-20th-century Midwestern politics are also given insights into the family dynamics of one of Duluth’s most politically active families whose social circles included Hubert Humphrey. Not only is the author’s uncle Willard Munger the longest-serving member in the history of the Minnesota House of Representatives, but his father, Harry, served as chairman of the Democratic Party of St. Louis County. Both are described in intimate detail here. Accompanied by ample family photos and snapshots, this is a deeply personal, approachable, well-written book. A powerful theme that runs throughout is an abiding love of Northern Minnesota, particularly its natural environment, which served as the stage for Munger’s most profound memories and which the author laments is increasingly being replaced by buildings and asphalt. As a successful, powerful lawyer and judge in his own right, the author ends the story with meeting his wife, René, leaving readers wondering about his own career and post-adolescent life.
An often humorous, occasionally poignant reflection on growing up in the 1960s and ’70s.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73244-342-6
Page Count: 446
Publisher: Cloquet River Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Mark Munger
by Jennette McCurdy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 9, 2022
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
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The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 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
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by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
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by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
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by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
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