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THE OTHER BARACK

Name: THE OTHER BARACK
Author: Sally H. Jacobs
ISBN: 978-1-58648-793-5

THE BOLD AND RECKLESS LIFE OF PRESIDENT OBAMA'S FATHER

by Sally H. Jacobs ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2011

A thorough study of a subject who is hard to pin down—a welcome, evenhanded addition to the lively literature surrounding...

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A pioneering, full-scale biography of President Obama’s father, a promising but troubled man.

Boston Globe reporter Jacobs puts her investigative skills to work in following the elder Obama’s trail across continents and years. He was the son of a cook who worked for the British colonists of his native Kenya, from a Luo family that was early to convert to Islam; he was also at the forefront of his nation’s push for independence and, at least for a time, favored by the new socialist regime of Jomo Kenyatta. Obama Sr. was, Jacobs writes, “a man of brilliance, one whose probing intellect enabled him to soar above his peers in the scrubby tropical bush in which he was raised.” Yet he failed to live up to his early promise; sent to Harvard to study economics, he did not complete his degree, and on returning to Kenya he was unable to hold down the jobs he was offered, jobs that came with a considerable degree of influence and authority. The problem, it seems, was that Obama Sr. had a great fondness for alcohol; just so, he was a devoted pursuer of women, often married and often divorced, possibly bigamous and seemingly not much concerned with the children he fathered—including the future president who bears his name. Obama was clearly charismatic, just as clearly riddled with flaws; his political enemies put those shortcomings to good use, and Jacobs explores the conspiracy theories surrounding his death in an automobile accident. That curious end seems fitting, in a way, casting an enigmatic shadow over a man who was in life “a baffling mystery to many with whom he had lived and worked, including his disparate tribe of children.”

A thorough study of a subject who is hard to pin down—a welcome, evenhanded addition to the lively literature surrounding President Obama’s genealogy.

Pub Date: July 12, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-58648-793-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL 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)