Leleux sweeps readers from New York to Texas to rural Tennessee on a family pilgrimage—an understated work that highlights...
A memoir of Alzheimer’s during its final stages and of a family’s attempt to provide support for a spirited grandmother whose changed outlook allowed a vital relationship to move from estrangement to reconciliation.
Leleux (The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy, 2008) presents a slim, dignified portrait of his grandmother JoAnn—a wisecracking yet elegant Southerner with a penchant for entertaining—and his grandfather Alfred, her lifelong advocate, focusing on the brief window after the onset of her dementia. Rather than lingering over potentially negative details that often accompany the illness, such as extreme patient behaviors or caregiver burnout, the author explores the surprisingly merciful gifts that come with losing one’s memory: the ability to forgive and forget, to delight in the everyday and to believe that “anything is possible." Leleux was not, however, “striving for optimism” so much as a healthier perspective on a condition often regarded with foreboding. As the author, his mother and his grandfather accompanied JoAnn on her flights of fancy, the rift between Leleux’s mother and her parents began to heal, and the author discovered the power of self-reflection. Episodic recollections from childhood and a lengthy digression on Leleux’s mother-in-law round out this portrait of living amid decline. The author effectively transitions between JoAnn’s earlier years and moments after her diagnosis. She emerges not only as a beloved figure, but as a larger-than-life character who was eager for the spotlight, funny, gracious, occasionally biting in her assessment of others and altogether inspired.
Leleux sweeps readers from New York to Texas to rural Tennessee on a family pilgrimage—an understated work that highlights the emotional rewards of caring for a loved one.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-62124-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
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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