bookshelf

BEFORE NIGHT FALLS

Name: BEFORE NIGHT FALLS
Author: Reinaldo Arenas
ISBN: 0-670-84078-5

A MEMOIR

by Reinaldo Arenas ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1993

A last testament that resonates with passion for the freedom of the human spirit and for the author's beloved Cuba: a...

bookshelf

From Cuban novelist Arenas (The Doorman, 1991, etc.), who, ill with AIDS, committed suicide in 1990 shortly after completing this book: an extraordinarily powerful autobiography that's both a poignant personal memoir and a damning political indictment of the Castro regime and its supporters.

The only child of a mother whose lover deserted her, Arenas was raised in his peasant grandparents' home. Living in the countryside (whose superstitions and rituals the author vividly evokes here), the large family barely grew enough to feed themselves. As a teenager, Arenas worked in a factory, but, bored, he joined Castro's rebels, whose battles against Batista turned out to be more propaganda than reality—the real killing began, Arenas says, once Castro was in power. Selected for further education, he was sent for accountant's training in a remote camp where Marxist- Leninist texts and dogma were taught by Communists. By now, Arenas, disenchanted with Castro's totalitarian regime, had begun to write. His work soon attracted attention and he moved to Havana, where he wrote two novels that, though unpublished, won prestigious awards. Shortly afterward, the harassment began that would lead to the smuggling abroad of his writings, which were published overseas to critical acclaim; to brutal imprisonment and torture; and, finally, to exile with the Mariel boatlift. A homosexual—Arenas is very frank here about his experiences and feelings—and political dissident, the author had been doubly vulnerable in a state where homosexuals were routinely imprisoned. Exile proved little better: New York was "soulless,'' and for "Cubans who have suffered persecution for twenty years in that terrible world, there is really no solace anywhere.'' Unable to "write and to struggle for the freedom of Cuba,'' Arenas said in a letter intended for posthumous publication, "I am ending my life.''

A last testament that resonates with passion for the freedom of the human spirit and for the author's beloved Cuba: a distinguished addition to the literature of dissent and exile.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-670-84078-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1993

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

- BOOK REVIEW
THE COLOR OF SUMMER
by Reinaldo Arenas & translated by Andrew Hurley

- BOOK REVIEW
THE ASSAULT
by Reinaldo Arenas

- BOOK REVIEW
THE DOORMAN
by Reinaldo Arenas

bookshelf

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.

bookshelf

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

bookshelf

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...

bookshelf

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)