Though it often reads like an extended society gossip column, the narrative is studded with enough trivia and name-dropping...
Journalist and screenwriter Greenfield (Exile on Main St.: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones, 2006, etc.) pens a eulogy for the 1960s with his portrayal of the ascent and downfall of two upper-class wanderers.
Descended from old money, 20-somethings Susan “Puss” Coriat and Tommy Weber lived off their trust funds, rubbing elbows with Britain’s elite as they discovered their callings—Tommy as a race-car driver, Puss as an actress. By 1964, the couple was married with two baby boys, and they soon fell into the drug experimentation of the mid-’60s. On a trip to the Greek islands with her children in tow, Puss suffered a schizophrenic episode. With her institutionalized, Tommy took charge of the children, soon befriending Keith Richards and staying with the Rolling Stones in France during the recording of Exile on Main St. It was the peak before the fall for both the ’60s and the lives of Puss and Tommy. By 1971, heroin and cocaine became the mainstays of a scene once limited to LSD and marijuana, and Tommy fell into heavy abuse. Puss, as happened with more than a few of the “European hippie jet-set scene,” committed suicide. Tommy then couch-surfed around Europe with his children, hanging out with stars and scammers, even cooking up plans to free Timothy Leary, then a fugitive in Switzerland. Fast-forward a couple decades. Son Jake became a well-known actor, starring in NBC’s Medium, while Charley became a musician and Web designer. After abusing his body for decades, Tommy died in 2006. To sum up the turbulent decade, the author visited Puss’ grave, writing that, along with her physical remains lies “the spirit of an age long since gone, a moment in time when those engaged in a grand social experiment did everything they could to break free from all constraints.”
Though it often reads like an extended society gossip column, the narrative is studded with enough trivia and name-dropping to engage ex-hippies and other fans of ’60s culture.Pub Date: May 15, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-306-81622-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
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.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
bookshelf
