Resilient and fiercely observant, Posey is an unflinchingly honest and entertaining interpreter of her many stories.
The “Queen of Indie Film” writes hilariously and thoughtfully about her life and the lives of Gracie, her dog, and other intriguing misfits she’s known.
Using the conceit that she’s relating stories about her life while sitting next to you on a flight—a possibility she laments is increasingly untenable since no one in America talks to strangers anymore—Posey is an amiable, zigzag raconteur. Probably best known for her inspired roles in Christopher Guest mockumentaries like Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show, she now stars on Netflix’s Lost in Space reboot. The author was a determined daydreamer and performer from an early age; her father had to fasten jingle bells to her notepad in elementary school so she would remember to write down her homework assignments. Her tendency to choose meaningful projects such as Dazed and Confused or Personal Velocity rather than schlocky studio flicks hasn’t helped her finances, but her choices have endeared her to a generation of film buffs who were young enough in the 1990s and early 2000s to understand that independent American cinema at that time was a movement. (In one priceless scene, the author recounts her nauseous reaction to a misogynistic script a casting director gave her: “I...walked outside, where I immediately threw up in one of the enormous potted plants. And then three times more. It was the perfect height, and I paused and felt blessed.”) “I’m not great at being a movie star,” she writes. “It’s either too boring or too much work.” This book is one of the most atypical celebrity memoirs in recent memory. The narrative flow is occasionally whiplash-inducing as Posey marches through her life, but she is an irrepressible and appealingly eccentric guide throughout.
Resilient and fiercely observant, Posey is an unflinchingly honest and entertaining interpreter of her many stories.Pub Date: July 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1819-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
PROFILES
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
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