by Michael Gross ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2003
One-note and strangely impersonal: the public Lauren when readers were looking for the private. (12 b&w photos)
Tepid, unauthorized biography of The King of Lifestyle Merchandizing.
“Ralphie had a thing for clothes,” writes Gross (Model, 1995, etc.) of young Ralph Lifshitz, who grew up in the Bronx during the 1940s and ’50s. The chapters about the youthful Lauren and the old Jewish neighborhood in which he spent his early years are the most interesting here. Ralph’s mother had his future mapped out as a rabbi, but instead he got into haberdashery (ties, that is), and his destiny was sealed. “I'm promoting a level of taste, a total feeling,” the designer now named Ralph Lauren declared of his ties in 1967. Sound familiar? So does much of this account, which suffers from the author’s lack of access to Lauren and most of his family, many of his associates, and a host of industry insiders who didn't want to alienate him. What readers get instead of interviews with those in the know is hardly surprising: rival designers dis Lauren and dismiss his ideas as knock-offs; the photographers Slim Aarons and Bruce Weber are credited with playing big roles in his image; he’s criticized for commodifying status and elevating traditional to immortal; his workplace is depicted as having an unsavory atmosphere (“in later years, employees would equate Lauren with cult leader Jim Jones”); and Gross writes little about his character more complimentary than: “The checklist of narcissistic personality traits seems to fit Lauren like a bespoke suit.” Nor is it exactly a shock that an ace image manipulator would also be an utter control freak. On the other hand, the author handles with clinical circumspection Lauren's admitted affair with model Kim Nye and views the company’s bottom line as more important than his less-than-elegant behavior as an employer, which “typically began with seduction and ended with abuse.”
One-note and strangely impersonal: the public Lauren when readers were looking for the private. (12 b&w photos)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-019904-0
Page Count: 416
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Share your opinion of this book
by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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
Share your opinion of this book
by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
Share your opinion of this book
More by Jon Krakauer
BOOK REVIEW
by Jon Krakauer
BOOK REVIEW
by Jon Krakauer
BOOK REVIEW
by Jon Krakauer
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.