Deft and probing, with stunningly close-up glimpses of a maniac’s ascendancy.
Penetrating biography of a man once on such intimate terms with Hitler that his son would know the Holocaust’s progenitor as “Uncle Dolph.”
Dubbed “Putzi,” an affectionate nickname from his American mother that haunted his entire adult life, Ernst Hanfstaengl was born in 1887 to a prominent Bavarian family engaged in publishing reproductions of fine art. He struggled academically at Harvard, though he was well liked as a bon vivant and party pianist, but managed to graduate in 1909. Running the family’s New York gallery, he became an acquaintance of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s through the Harvard Club. The stage was thus set for a fascinating double life, notes Conradi, deputy foreign editor of the London Times. By 1921, Putzi had married Helene Neimeyer, daughter of German immigrants, and they had a son, Egon, but he was at odds with an older brother and decided to return home. Urged by a friend to hear Hitler speak, Hanfstaengl sensed that a country in turmoil was prone to Nazism’s lures. He joined Hitler’s entourage as a “civilizing” tutor, piano-therapist (playing Hitler’s favorite Wagnerian themes), and sometime pimp (he often worried about the leader’s lack of a sex life); later he became the party’s foreign press liaison. Fleeing the failed 1923 Munich Beer Hall putsch, Hanfstaengl made for Austria while Hitler went to Putzi’s country house, where Helene and Egon were waiting. The police followed, and Hitler attempted suicide, but Helene, upon whom the Fuehrer had an obsessive, lap-dog crush, literally knocked the pistol out of his mouth, thus securing his place in history. Finally repelled by Hitler’s extremism, Putzi (divorced by his wife in 1936) narrowly escaped the Reich in 1937, ultimately becoming a key figure in FDR’s psy-war Project S.
Deft and probing, with stunningly close-up glimpses of a maniac’s ascendancy.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7867-1283-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An intriguing look at an iconoclast’s cultural accomplishments.
Beloved, controversial performer discusses fame and the deeper meanings of his life.
Common, subject of Fox News’ ire following his White House poetry recitation, has long been acclaimed as a thoughtful and deft hip-hop artist. In his memoir—co-authored by Bradley (Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, 2009, etc.)—he suggests great consciousness of the cultural legacy he carries: “Chicago blackness gave me understanding, awareness, street sense, and a rhythm. I learned the way that soulful people move, act, and talk.” He portrays himself as an openhearted, curious kid, trying to understand the tumult of Chicago’s African-American South Side. Obsessed with girls from an early age, he would go to the city’s museums to meet them. At the same time, he was rhyming in private, and he gave up basketball in high school to concentrate on rap, which he saw as similarly competitive. Common writes frankly about his youthful involvement with gang culture, portrayed as an inevitable rite of passage that became increasingly violent: “Crack hit the South Side of Chicago like a balled up fist.” Varied influences—his mother, friends, artistic ambitions—steered him away from it and toward a more “conscious” existence. By 1989, his early demos as Common Sense were drawing industry attention, and he dropped out of college to pursue this calling, over his mother’s objections. Much of what follows is a funny, honest showbiz narrative, moving from hip-hop to film acting. Interestingly, each chapter begins with a “letter” to someone significant in his life: e.g., his mother and father (early chapters discuss their tumultuous relationship), Emmett Till, former girlfriend Erykah Badu and collaborator Kanye West. Additionally, his mother offers occasional italicized counterpoint. As a memoir, the book succeeds based on Common’s candor, intelligence and charm, despite occasional artificial passages and broad platitudes, and he writes powerfully about his connection with President Obama.
An intriguing look at an iconoclast’s cultural accomplishments.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-2587-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.
An exhaustive—and exhausting—chronicle of the champ's boxing career and disastrous life.
Tyson was dealt an unforgiving hand as a child, raised in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in a "horrific, tough and gruesome" environment populated by "loud, aggressive" people who "smelled like raw sewage.” A first-grade dropout with several break-ins under his belt by age 7, his formal education resumed when he was placed in juvenile detention at age 11, but the lesson he learned at home was to do absolutely anything to survive. Two years later, his career path was set when he met legendary boxing trainer Cus D'Amato. However, Tyson’s temperament never changed; if anything, it hardened when he took on the persona of Iron Mike, a merciless and savage fighter who became undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. By his own admission, he was an "arrogant sociopath" in and out of the ring, and he never reconciled his thuggish childhood with his adult self—nor did he try. He still partied with pimps, drug addicts and hustlers, and he was determined to feed all of his vices and fuel several drug addictions at the cost of his freedom (he recounts his well-documented incarcerations), sanity and children. Yet throughout this time, he remained a voracious reader, and he compares himself to Clovis and Charlemagne and references Camus, Sartre, Mao Zedong and Nietzsche's "Overman" in casual conversation. Tyson is a slumdog philosopher whose insatiable appetites have ruined his life many times over. He remains self-loathing and pitiable, and his tone throughout the book is sardonic, exasperated and indignant, his language consistently crude. The book, co-authored by Sloman (co-author: Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss, 2012, etc.), reads like his journal; he updated it after reading the galleys and added "A Postscript to the Epilogue" as well.
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-16128-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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