Barber (The School of Love, 1990) tells of her childhood and early adolescence in Nevada, and of her yearnings for some indefinable circumstance that would allow her to transcend tawdry Las Vegas and the strict dictates of her Mormon religion. The author writes of a family car-trip into the desert to witness an atomic-bomb test; of pilgrimages to the man-made marvel of the Hoover Dam; and of a visit by Hawaiians who performed a wild, semiclad show at the local high school and who stayed at Barber's house, marking her first contact with the wonders of the world outside Nevada. The discovery of her own musical talents seemed to Barber to open up a path to greater things: She studied piano, was praised by family and friends, and got a job playing for a ballet studio. But she avoided lessons with a new teacher who threatened to demand more of her than the flashy popular favorites that impressed everyone else. High school brought the chance to try out for the Rhythmettes, a kick-line/cheerleading squad; channeling all of her ambition and longing into this quest, Barber succeeded in making the team. Among the Rhythmettes' duties was greeting visiting celebrities at the airport—and Barber took it personally when Leonard Bernstein ignored her. Then sex reared its head, causing painful conflict with the principles of purity upheld by her religion. Barber is at her best when she is most concrete, contrasting the garish Sodom of Las Vegas with the simple-living, high-minded ways of her Mormon family and with the forbidding beauty of the desert. When she tries to home-in on peak moments of emotion and epiphany, though, her writing tends to go purple and hazy. Overall, an engaging coming-of-age memoir by a writer of charm and spunk. (Eight illustrations—not seen.)
Pub Date: July 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-8203-1413-7
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Univ. of Georgia
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
