While the fanciful imagery employed by Oxnam may give his story greater impact, it will not authenticate it for skeptics who...
Memoir may not quite be the word to describe this account, which is presented as the work of several personalities, each speaking for him or herself.
The principal narrator, Robert, is the dominant personality, but this was not always so, according to Oxnam, an Asia specialist and business consultant who asserts that for some 30 years, another personality, Bob, was dominant. Memory blackouts, bizarre behaviors and alcoholism led him in 1989 to Dr. Jeffrey Smith, a psychiatrist with some experience with multiple personalities. Oxnam began twice-a-week sessions with the psychiatrist, who in mid-1990 told him that he had multiple personality disorder (MPD, now renamed dissociative identity disorder, or DID) after a session in which an alternate personality, Tommy, an angry adolescent boy, emerged. As their sessions continued, other so-called alters—Young Bob, Robbey, Robert, Witch, Eyes, Lawrence, the Librarian, Baby and Wanda—all trapped inside separate parts of a dark castle, appeared. Labels identify which section of the narrative comes from which voice. Although Oxnam’s childhood memories were initially vague, under therapy he recovered memories of early, ugly abuse. In MPD theory, dissociation is a method of coping with the trauma of such abuse. Through long therapy, Oxnam gradually freed the alters from the castle and achieved partial integration of the personalities. By the end, three of the alters—Bobby, Wanda and Robert—remain separate, but have worked out a “collaborative multiplicity,” with Bobby providing his youthful energy, Wanda her internal incisiveness and outer perceptiveness and Robert his drive. Oxnam weaves into this psychological narrative stories of trials and triumphs from his professional life, which include dealings with Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and the first President Bush, and scenes from his marriage to a remarkably understanding woman.
While the fanciful imagery employed by Oxnam may give his story greater impact, it will not authenticate it for skeptics who question either the existence of MPD as a genuine mental disorder or the legitimacy of recovered memories.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-4013-0227-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2005
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
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