by Richard Coulson ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 2, 2014
A keenly observed, fast-paced memoir.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
A well-traveled veteran of the legal and business worlds reflects on his experiences in the 20th century and beyond.
In this debut memoir of elite education, international finance, and expatriate living, Coulson demonstrates how judicious name-dropping can add a dash of spice to an already intriguing life story. He tells tales of a childhood marked by constant travel between the Bahamas and the United States (“we moved like migratory birds, following the same cycle every year between the same three nesting places”) under the care of a mother who kept everyone, including her husband and her ex-husband, in harmony. He also writes of his successes at Phillips Academy in Andover and Yale University and of a legal career that began at one of New York City’s leading firms. Overall, Coulson reflects on his journey with an air of contentment. At one point, for example, he shared a beer with “Mike, the Chief Inspector of the uniformed force, and Lefty, the Chief of Detectives,” while taking a detour into civil service; at another, he tested his mettle with commentator and fellow sailor William F. Buckley Jr., who appreciated a challenging sea: “At its prospect a wild light flashed in Bill’s eyes with an excitement akin to skewering a muddled liberal on Firing Line.” The author’s skill as a dealmaker took him to Mexico and England, though he ultimately made his home in the Bahamas, finding a place in Nassau’s financial world while avoiding the Wall Street scandals of the 1980s. The author is aware that his upbringing was a privileged one, but the memoir spends little time analyzing this status: Andover is called “the closest thing to a democratic meritocracy,” and a dinner is served by a friend’s “Oriental houseman.” In Coulson’s slice of society, divorces, including his own, are always amicable. However, readers looking for a portrait of achievement and satisfaction will find it here, with the author’s elegant turns of phrase (“an event that proved as awkward as The Great Gatsby reception”) propelling the narrative from one engaging anecdote to another.
A keenly observed, fast-paced memoir.Pub Date: June 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1491734766
Page Count: 322
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by Elie Wiesel
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
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.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.