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TAKING PART

Name: TAKING PART
Author: Robert Josephy
ISBN: 0-87745-412-4

A TWENTIETH-CENTURY LIFE

by Robert Josephy ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

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The memoir of a bashful nonagenarian—who here fails to provide an intimate enough view of himself or of his sometimes- famous friends. The story of this book designer, apple farmer, and conservationist begins interestingly enough, with glimpses of early 20th-century New York and of Josephy's childhood among upper- middle-class Jews—and with portents of the social consciousness that he would develop. Josephy knew people both fascinating and famous, including Arthur Miller, Alexander Calder, and H.L. Mencken. But a self-confessed wariness of emotion seems to prevent him from describing his relationships—even with family and wives- -in compelling detail. At times, this is downright annoying, as when the author breaks off telling about his father's difficulties by saying he doesn't ``care to describe'' them, or when he hints that a neighbor was sleeping with someone famous but doesn't say who. But there's an undeniable decency about Josephy, and his book makes clear that he not only ``took part'' but was an innovator in modern high-production book design—and that he was a force for good in political and environmental affairs as well. Surprisingly, the next-to-the-end chapters, in which Josephy describes the workings of his apple farm—down to technical operations—are the most involving. Here, the author's abiding interests—politics, the environment, social relations—are well integrated as he convinces us that, despite personal difficulties and cultural fragmentation, he's managed to cultivate a satisfactory life. With the exception of a few chapters, then, Josephy's memoir likely will prove more interesting to his progeny than to the general public. (Thirty-five photographs—not seen)

Pub Date: July 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-87745-412-4

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Univ. of Iowa

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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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.

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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

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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...

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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)