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THE ANTI-ROMANTIC CHILD

Name: THE ANTI-ROMANTIC CHILD
Author: Priscilla Gilman
ISBN: 978-0-06-169027-3

A STORY OF UNEXPECTED JOY

by Priscilla Gilman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2011

A striking celebration of the bond between a mother and son.

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Literary agent Gilman, a former professor of English literature, describes the challenges that she faced parenting a developmentally disabled son.

The author’s expectations of motherhood were shaped by her memories of her own idyllic childhood, reinforced by the romantic poetry of Wordsworth. The reality was harsher until, to her great delight, at the age one her son Benjamin began showing what appeared to be amazing precocity. He recognized letters, could identify objects and at 16 months could read several words. Though he didn’t like being touched and was fearful of loud sounds, he delighted in showing off his skills. At two, he was able to read fluently and tap out complex rhythms, and he loved to sing and recite poetry. His memory was also impressive, as was his recognition of shapes and numbers. Gilman's anxiety for her son began to dissipate, and she and her husband “simply accepted that we had an odd, unconventional, and possibly brilliant little boy on our hands.” That illusion was shattered when he was evaluated for admission to a preschool. The school administration was concerned about his lack of social skills and his tendency to parrot words rather than use them to express himself. He seemed to lack a sense of identity and didn't appear to comprehend simple pronouns, and his motor skills were poorly developed. He was also anxious and couldn't relate to the other children. Seeking professional help, the author learned that he suffered from hyperplexia, a disorder that is sometimes linked to Asperger's. The author chronicles how she and her husband, his teachers and therapists, were able to help him gain language skills and master his anxieties so that he could not only relate to others but fully express his own creative gifts. “In parenting Benj,” writes the author, “I have gotten more in touch with a profound kind of romanticism; I have been given access to a transcendent sense of mystery and awe and wonder.”

A striking celebration of the bond between a mother and son.

Pub Date: May 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-06-169027-3

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2011

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS | PSYCHOLOGY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

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The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).

Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor will it to readers of Krakauer's narrative. (4 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)