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EINSTEIN'S DAUGHTER

THE SEARCH FOR LIESERL

A disappointing account of the illegitimate child conceived by Albert Einstein and his first wife, Mileva Mari—, a daughter who disappeared from all records until the publication of her parents’ early love letters in 1986. In 1902, Mari—, not yet married to Einstein, gave birth to a daughter behind closed doors at her parents’ home in the Vojvodina (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). By the following year, all traces of the child had disappeared. Zackheim (Violette’s Embrace, 1996) set out to solve the mystery of Einstein’s “lost” daughter. In her view, the child, named Lieserl, was born with severe mental handicaps. For this reason, Mari— decided to leave the child with her parents rather then return with her to Bern. When Lieserl died of scarlet fever less than two years after her birth, the family covered up all traces of her existence and kept secret this painful chapter in their history. Zackheim has clearly poured herself into this project. She has searched archives, read books and articles, interviewed relatives and friends of Einstein and Mari——plus potential surviving Lieserls—and spent several years in Serbia in search of the lost child. The question she leaves unanswered is: Why should anyone share the author’s obvious passion for this mystery? What does it reveal to us that is new or noteworthy about Einstein or Mari—? If Zackheim has not succeeded in persuading her audience of the importance of her topic in the broader scope of Einstein scholarship, it is because her book imprudently tells more about Mileva Mari— than her husband. In addition, Zackheim has delved so deeply into Serbian folklore, customs, and traditions that she foists them on her subject. Readers do not benefit from Serbian sayings and words that repeatedly appear in mid-sentence in both Serbian and English. Nor does Zackheim present convincing evidence that Mari— herself was closely bound to the Serbian customs she so lovingly details. In this misguided account of the child’s story, Zackheim, playing sleuth, dwells on the details but leaves a void at the heart of the drama.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999

ISBN: 1-57322-127-9

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Riverhead

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999

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NIGHT

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. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

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

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

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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