In a moving commemoration of the 125th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s birth, Soames, his last surviving child (Family Album, 1982; Clementine Churchill, 1979), presents a large selection of the intimate letters of Churchill and his wife, Clementine, from 1909 to 1964. Soames presents the letters both chronologically and topically, starting with the courtship and marriage of the Churchills in 1909 and swiftly moving into Churchill’s long career in Parliament and the government. Fortunately for Clementine, she reveals herself to be keenly interested in politics, which consumed her husband’s life and occasioned so many separations between them. The early letters show the Churchills” spontaneous reactions to the commencement of the First World War; the tragic Battle of Gallipoli (1915—16), for which Churchill bore responsibility and which ended his early career in the Cabinet; his life in France as a military officer; the Peace Conference at Versailles; and the Republican crisis in Ireland, during which Churchill was an IRA assassination target and negotiated with the Republican forces. Later letters record his reaction to his long exile from office, his travels abroad, the deepening political crisis in Europe, and his reentry into government with the commencement of WWII. A large number of letters date from the WWII period, as Churchill’s leadership of the government necessitated prolonged absences from Clementine. While he lost his position as prime minister immediately after the war, he regained it briefly in the 1950s. While full of references to the world of public affairs, and the acts and personalities of great men, the letters also contain ample references to domestic matters and discuss the Churchills” five children, their friends and relations, and family events. The long dialogue finally ends with Clementine’s noting of Parliament’s vote of thanks to Churchill in 1964. A uniquely intimate contribution to Churchilliana and an engrossing record of a remarkable marriage. (133 b&w photos; 6 maps) (Author tour)
Pub Date: March 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-96319-2
Page Count: 768
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
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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