A compelling and affectionate tribute, peppered with historical tidbits and brimming with sage, homespun counsel.
The author shares engaging family stories that celebrate the wisdom, tenacity, and limitless love of her 95-year-old father.
“My dad has lived most of his life with his hand in the lion’s mouth,” Whitaker writes. “Being born a black man in the rural south, there was always the desire for a better life and big dreams against the lion’s trampling oppression of the Jim Crow era.” Green Whitaker, born in 1926, was the 18th of 19 children, 11 of whom were born to Green’s father, Isaac, and his mother, Estella Sabbath (“Big Momma”). The family lived on 80 acres of Whitaker-owned farmland in Holly, Louisiana. But when Green was 10, the family was forced to sell the farm: “And just like that, they went from landowners to sharecroppers, a family who worked and shared land on a plantation.” The author’s father was just a child when he began working long hours in the cotton fields. It was a reversal of fortune that could have shattered his sense of pride and determination. Instead, buoyed by the embrace of a loving family, his deep religious beliefs, and a kind heart, he grew into a dignified, resourceful husband and father of four. Whitaker, a singer/songwriter and the first Black woman to win the title of Miss Louisiana, writes with a conversational elegance that carries a hint of the musical lilt of her Shreveport upbringing: “The sense of belonging, the work and purpose of close knit families working toward shared goals, the enveloping love of like-minded people who had a deep abiding faith, was a sweet time in my dad’s life.” Each anecdote highlights a nugget of Green’s advice about how to navigate life’s challenges with confidence, courage, and love, spoken in words that are succinct, amusing, and often moving. When Whitaker once asked him if all White people were rich, he drove her through a poor White community and commented, “ ‘People are just people. We all the same, just come here in different skins.’ ”
A compelling and affectionate tribute, peppered with historical tidbits and brimming with sage, homespun counsel.Pub Date: May 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-9852648-5-7
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Basketball fans will enjoy Pippen’s bird’s-eye view of some of the sport’s greatest contests.
The Chicago Bulls stalwart tells all—and then some.
Hall of Famer Pippen opens with a long complaint: Yes, he’s a legend, but he got short shrift in the ESPN documentary about Michael Jordan and the Bulls, The Last Dance. Given that Jordan emerges as someone not quite friend enough to qualify as a frenemy, even though teammates for many years, the maltreatment is understandable. This book, Pippen allows, is his retort to a man who “was determined to prove to the current generation of fans that he was larger-than-life during his day—and still larger than LeBron James, the player many consider his equal, if not superior.” Coming from a hardscrabble little town in Arkansas and playing for a small college, Pippen enjoyed an unlikely rise to NBA stardom. He played alongside and against some of the greats, of whom he writes appreciatively (even Jordan). Readers will gain insight into the lives of characters such as Dennis Rodman, who “possessed an unbelievable basketball IQ,” and into the behind-the-scenes work that led to the Bulls dynasty, which ended only because, Pippen charges, the team’s management was so inept. Looking back on his early years, Pippen advocates paying college athletes. “Don’t give me any of that holier-than-thou student-athlete nonsense,” he writes. “These young men—and women—are athletes first, not students, and make up the labor that generates fortunes for their schools. They are, for lack of a better term, slaves.” The author also writes evenhandedly of the world outside basketball: “No matter how many championships I have won, and millions I have earned, I never forget the color of my skin and that some people in this world hate me just because of that.” Overall, the memoir is closely observed and uncommonly modest, given Pippen’s many successes, and it moves as swiftly as a playoff game.
Basketball fans will enjoy Pippen’s bird’s-eye view of some of the sport’s greatest contests.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982165-19-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
Everything about Sabathia is larger than life, yet he tells his story with honesty and humility.
One of the best pitchers of his generation—and often the only Black man on his team—shares an extraordinary life in baseball.
A high school star in several sports, Sabathia was being furiously recruited by both colleges and professional teams when the death of his grandmother, whose Social Security checks supported the family, meant that he couldn't go to college even with a full scholarship. He recounts how he learned he had been drafted by the Cleveland Indians in the first round over the PA system at his high school. In 2001, after three seasons in the minor leagues, Sabathia became the youngest player in MLB (age 20). His career took off from there, and in 2008, he signed with the New York Yankees for seven years and $161 million, at the time the largest contract ever for a pitcher. With the help of Vanity Fair contributor Smith, Sabathia tells the entertaining story of his 19 seasons on and off the field. The first 14 ran in tandem with a poorly hidden alcohol problem and a propensity for destructive bar brawls. His high school sweetheart, Amber, who became his wife and the mother of his children, did her best to help him manage his repressed fury and grief about the deaths of two beloved cousins and his father, but Sabathia pursued drinking with the same "till the end" mentality as everything else. Finally, a series of disasters led to a month of rehab in 2015. Leading a sober life was necessary, but it did not tame Sabathia's trademark feistiness. He continued to fiercely rile his opponents and foment the fighting spirit in his teammates until debilitating injuries to his knees and pitching arm led to his retirement in 2019. This book represents an excellent launching point for Jay-Z’s new imprint, Roc Lit 101.
Everything about Sabathia is larger than life, yet he tells his story with honesty and humility.Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-13375-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Roc Lit 101
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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