Lightweight bio of Rush Hudson Limbaugh III, the heartland eminence whose glib wit and rough charms have made him a heavyweight champion of tory causes. With no help (or hindrance) from his subject, Colford (a media columnist for Newsday) has cobbled together a once-over-lightly account of Limbaugh's life that, among other shortcomings, provides superfluous detail on broadcast-industry minutiae. The author first tracks the man from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in his determined efforts to forge a career in radio. Having failed as a top-40 DJ and spent five unfulfilling years in promotion for baseball's Kansas City Royals, Limbaugh made a name for himself as host of an afternoon talk show in Sacramento—an act taken national in 1988 by a crafty packager. The rest, so to speak, is history: The immensely popular college dropout (who turns 42 this year) now reaches over four million listeners daily with his brashly conservative radio commentaries. He also presides over a half-hour syndicated TV show and, of course, has written the bestselling The Way Things Ought to Be (1992). While Colford expresses some grudging admiration for Limbaugh—whose jocular broadsides challenge conventional liberal wisdom on fronts from abortion to cultural diversity, the environment, feminists, homosexuality, and taxation—he's at pains to dish such dirt as can be unearthed. Among other matters, the author delves inconclusively into Limbaugh's 4-F draft status during the Vietnam War; remarks frequently on his subject's lifelong weight problems; features sources who view the twice- divorced commentator as a lonely guy; and questions whether a Manhattan-based Limbaugh can survive as a superstar member of the media elite he professes to despise. What Colford doesn't do is offer any sustained analysis of the visceral appeal of an entertainer who's given voice to many of the electorate's deepest aspirations—and fears. A profile of a consequential showman, then, that's more notable for background noise than substantive content. (Eight pages of photographs—not seen).
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-312-09906-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1993
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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