An absorbing, if unsettling, survivor’s account, rendered with passion and spirit.
In this disturbing debut memoir, a “red diaper baby” celebrates surviving a tumultuous upbringing by her Communist, labor-organizing and often absent parents.
Shtarke, a Yiddish word meaning “strong-spirited,” certainly describes De Felice’s late mother, Clara Fiering, an indefatigable labor organizer and advocate for the downtrodden. This episodic book largely focuses on her; the author’s father, Henry Fiering, was cut from the same mold but receives second billing. The author’s parents’ rocky marriage, marked by frequent separations and work that put the interests of the Communist Party and unions first, left De Felice to fend for herself from an early age. In this revealing memoir, she shows how this situation sometimes led to disaster. A monstrous babysitter, for example, regularly left her tied to a chair for hours while she went shopping. One day, when the author was not yet a teenager, a group of boys assaulted her when she was walking home alone from school; when she got home, her mother was busy conducting a political meeting and failed to see her dishevelment. The family also constantly moved wherever the party sent them. Yet amid this trauma, De Felice effectively shows how she deeply loved her parents, who did seem to be committed to her, and how a full complement of relatives and friends added some semblance of stability to her life. Although her parents were avowed atheists, they admonished her to “just remember you’re Jewish,” which provided her with another source of sustenance. However, this memoir lacks a detailed explanation of the parents’ political beliefs, other than the fact that both were Communist Party members until 1953. Did they try to build labor unions so that workers would get fairer wages and better working conditions, or were they committed Marxists striving to create a proletariat that would seize the means of production? The author says that they left the party because “they couldn’t stand the dogma any longer,” but she doesn’t specify what dogma. There are also a few historical inaccuracies, as when the author says that “hundreds died” when cavalry and Army troops attacked unemployed World War I veterans during a 1932 march in Washington, D.C.; most historical accounts put the number at four.
An absorbing, if unsettling, survivor’s account, rendered with passion and spirit.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477210772
Page Count: 300
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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