Hoping to capture ``the special, unrealized gift of sisterness,'' fiction writer Stern (English/Univ. of Chicago; Shares, 1992, etc.) even invents a word—sistermony—to describe this extraordinary memoir of his sister's death and legacy. Four years older than the author, Ruth Stern Leviton died a long, slow death from cancer at 67 in August 1991. A sort of ``Jewish Katharine Hepburn,'' she was ``pretty, tall...cool and witty-looking.'' She was a lifelong New Yorker and had been, among other things, personnel manager and supervisor of contracts at Simon & Schuster. Stern's relationship with his big sister was comprised of ``possessiveness and protectiveness...as well as annoyance, jealousy, rivalry, and fury.'' Though much of their relationship was characterized by bonhomie and laughter, and though the more nurturing side of Ruth's sisterly love showed only rarely in adulthood, it did show up when needed, during Stern's own crises like illness and divorce. As they rehash life with their parents, the hodgepodge of aunts, uncles, and cousins, Stern realizes that he wants Ruth to tell him before she goes, about his infancy and toddlerhood, ``the life I'd lived but didn't remember.'' While it's difficult to sort out Stern's family members, his personal reminiscences of Ezra Pound and Thomas Mann, and anecdotes from decades of friendship with Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and others are delightful and revealing. But the heart and soul of this memoir is his painstaking, progressively unsparing descriptions of the minutiae of slow dying: the injections; the draining of fluids; the black-and-blue slack skin; the munching of ice chips to relieve a dry mouth; the lapses into semi-consciousness (``Keep talking. I like to hear your voice''); and Ruth's deathbed humor (``I knew I vuzn't in duh best a helt—but diss!).'' An unheralded master, Stern has penned a small masterpiece, an intimate, cherishable American classic on death and dying—and sisterhood. (Photos)
Pub Date: March 20, 1995
ISBN: 1-55611-427-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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