Good for beach-readers interested in celebrity memoir and famous comedians.
That Girl star and Emmy-winning TV veteran attempts to find out how humor works.
Thomas (The Right Words at the Right Time: Volume 2: Your Turn!, 2006, etc.), the daughter of funnyman Danny Thomas, builds on her thriving second career as a nonfiction writer. Each chapter contains an autobiographical section—with the author’s memories of encountering funny famous folks during her upbringing in Southern California—along with an interview section featuring big-name comedians in the league of Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Robin Williams and Billy Crystal. Although interview banter with natural wits like Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert is an easy sell, it’s Thomas’s autobiographical musings that are the most compelling aspect of the book—e.g., the surprisingly affecting story of her determination to carve out an identity as an actress without the help of her famous father. Particularly refreshing is the description of her coming-of-age in Beverly Hills at a time when the neighborhood still had a middle-class feel and was full of unpretentious eateries and mom-and-pop shops. Even more surprising to learn is that her father, unlike so many celebrity fathers, seems to have been a kind, caring, loving patriarch. On the downside, Thomas’s interviewing style is fawning at best, and except for a chat with a feisty and recalcitrant Elaine May and the always-amusing Don Rickles, the author’s questions fall too often in the “So, you were the class clown?” category. Her responses are often limited to “That’s so funny,” “Ah-ha” and “Wow.” Although all her subjects have big personalities and star-quality wit, there’s rarely any original, penetrating insight into the formative human experiences that coagulate to create the perfect comedic brain. There are patterns, of course: Often a comedian will come from a funny family or use humor as a way of masking insecurities, but these are hardly major revelations.
Good for beach-readers interested in celebrity memoir and famous comedians.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4013-2391-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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