A slight, breezy memoir that delves into serious subjects.
A dying mother puts a middle-aged humorist more in touch with his own mortality.
Title aside, this memoir mentions Black’s navel hardly at all. The author obsesses more on the feet and toes that have embarrassed him longer than other appendages and on his “flaccid penis, hanging down like an aardvark snout.” Meditations on the author’s body generally alternate with reports on his failing mother and her various operations, including a “bellybuttonectomy” that left her without a navel on which to gaze. Much of the material here could be dark, even grim, but Black sustains a light touch throughout, projecting a warmth that extends from his relationship with his mother through his family life with wife and children. On the one hand, he recognizes that “every body inevitably fails….They are the very definition of planned obsolescence.” On the other hand, though he admits that the darker truths of existence have led him to contemplate suicide, he maintains, “I don’t ever plan on killing myself. For that matter, I don’t ever plan on dying. But I also know that circumstances change, people change, minds change.” Death (even suicide) permeates this book, yet it is the kind of book that some folks buy others to put the aging process in perspective, to have a laugh or two at it, to keep from taking oneself and one’s fate too seriously. So there are plenty of episodes that find the hapless author trying to combat aging by joining a gym or training for a distance race, and there are a few interludes that have nothing to do with aging at all but which didn’t fit in his other books (he terms this a follow-up to You’re Not Doing It Right, 2012) and omits material (such as that concerning his dad) that might have worked fine here but which he’d previously written about.
A slight, breezy memoir that delves into serious subjects.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-4882-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PROFILES
A straightforward tale of kindness and paying it forward in 1980s New York.
When advertising executive Schroff answered a child’s request for spare change by inviting him for lunch, she did not expect the encounter to grow into a friendship that would endure into his adulthood. The author recounts how she and Maurice, a promising boy from a drug-addicted family, learned to trust each other. Schroff acknowledges risks—including the possibility of her actions being misconstrued and the tension of crossing socio-economic divides—but does not dwell on the complexities of homelessness or the philosophical problems of altruism. She does not question whether public recognition is beneficial, or whether it is sufficient for the recipient to realize the extent of what has been done. With the assistance of People human-interest writer Tresniowski (Tiger Virtues, 2005, etc.), Schroff adheres to a personal narrative that traces her troubled relationship with her father, her meetings with Maurice and his background, all while avoiding direct parallels, noting that their childhoods differed in severity even if they shared similar emotional voids. With feel-good dramatizations, the story seldom transcends the message that reaching out makes a difference. It is framed in simple terms, from attributing the first meeting to “two people with complicated pasts and fragile dreams” that were “somehow meant to be friends” to the conclusion that love is a driving force. Admirably, Schroff notes that she did not seek a role as a “substitute parent,” and she does not judge Maurice’s mother for her lifestyle. That both main figures experience a few setbacks yet eventually survive is never in question; the story fittingly concludes with an epilogue by Maurice. For readers seeking an uplifting reminder that small gestures matter.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4251-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Howard Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Of the many words written about Jacqueline Kennedy, these are among the best.
Evocative memoir of guarding First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy through the young and sparkling years of the Kennedy presidency and the dark days following the assassination.
Secret Service Special Agent Hill had not looked forward to guarding Mrs. Kennedy. The action was with the president. But duty trumped preference, and he first met a young and pregnant soon-to-be First Lady in November 1960. For the next four years Hill would seldom leave her side. Theirs would be an odd relationship of always-proper formality combined with deep intimacy crafted through close proximity and mutual trust and respect. Hill was soon captivated, as was the rest of the world, by Mrs. Kennedy’s beauty and grace, but he saw beyond such glamour a woman of fierce intelligence and determination—to raise her children as normally as possible, to serve the president and country, to preserve for herself a playful love of life. Hill became a part of the privileged and vigorous life that went with being a Kennedy, and in which Jacqueline held her own. He traveled the world with her, marveling at the adulation she received, but he also shared the quiet, offstage times with her: sneaking a cigarette in the back of a limousine, becoming her unwilling and inept tennis partner. When the bullet ripped into the president’s brain with Hill not five feet away, he remained with her, through the public and private mourning, “when the laughter and hope had been washed away.” Soon after, both would go on with their lives, but Hill would never stop loving Mrs. Kennedy and never stop feeling he could have done more to save the president. With clear and honest prose free of salaciousness and gossip, Hill (ably assisted by McCubbin) evokes not only a personality both beautiful and brilliant, poised and playful, but also a time when the White House was filled with youth and promise.
Of the many words written about Jacqueline Kennedy, these are among the best.Pub Date: April 3, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4844-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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