Fitch (Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation, 1983) draws on Anaãs Nin's voluminous self-revelations (150 volumes of diaries, correspondence, and fiction) to produce what the publisher says is the first biography of the French writer—and what turns out to be a wary and defensive work, the very antithesis of Nin's free spirit. Abandoned and deprived in childhood, Nin enjoyed an enduring marriage (for over 50 years) to Hugo Guiler—as well as a series of affairs with Henry Miller, Otto Rank, Gore Vidal, Edmund Wilson, even her own father (who had seduced her in childhood): with men and women of all kinds, culminating in a bigamous marriage to Rupert Cole that had her commuting between New York and California for at least 25 years. Nin dissected her own protean personality in endless psychoanalysis—to her both a religion and a hobby—and delighted in the deceptions, incarnations, and masquerades that she revealed in her diaries in a fascinating display of a personality constantly reinventing itself. In her lifetime, she inspired parodies, films, scholarly newsletters, dissertations, even a perfume, and served as a catalyst between Hollywood, academia, and the feminists, who competed for her attention even though she reviled much of what they represented, choosing to spend most of her life as a sex object. Here, in a work that focuses on her sex life, Nin comes off—perhaps unintentionally—as trivial and culturally insignificant. Fitch overinterprets at the beginning of her text and is excessively factual toward the end, seeming to have either abandoned her method or simply lost interest in her subject. In spite of her use of the present tense and some vulgar familiarities (``Every spring her sap begins to rise''; ``Desire makes her body ache''), the author seems uncomfortable with Nin. No substitute for Nin on herself. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs—not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 29, 1993
ISBN: 0-316-28428-9
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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