The splendidly preposterous facts overwhelm any infirmities in the telling of this amazing personal history.
Strangely compelling memoir by a self-described “man without a country,” who relates his survival in and escape from Saddam’s war-torn Iraq.
Following his parents’ acrimonious divorce in 1978, 14-year-old Kenderian left Iraq with his mother and brother for the U.S. Seeking reconciliation with his father, he returned two years later, only to have Iraq’s borders close behind him at the outbreak of war with Iran. It lasted eight years; Kenderian ended up securing an engineering degree and serving in the Iraqi Navy. In 1990, after his father’s death, he tried to renew his green card, but before the process could be completed, he found himself an unwilling conscript fighting yet another of Saddam’s unprovoked wars. During the invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm, Kenderian decided his only chance of returning to the U.S. was to be captured by the Americans. His audacious plan succeeded, but not before a series of bizarre twists and turns more reminiscent of Kafka than Arabian Nights. The author and his frightened, unwilling comrades were sent into battle without sidearms, proper-caliber ammunition for the ship’s guns, medicine or sufficient food. Kenderian’s boat hit an Iraqi mine and was strafed by an American plane; he became the Gulf War’s 23rd prisoner of war. At a succession of POW camps, his captors thought he was a spy, while his fellow captives were suspect of the unusual attention he received from the guards. Sustained by his considerable wits, his deep religious faith, his unlikely love affair with truck-driving American servicewoman Monica and the intercession of family and friends in the outside world, he eventually made his way to his mother’s house in California. Kenderian’s account is at some points overly guarded; his parents’ story and his connection with Monica, for example, should have been discussed in more detail. His prose, an odd mixof world-weariness and naïveté, is also problematic.
The splendidly preposterous facts overwhelm any infirmities in the telling of this amazing personal history.Pub Date: June 1, 2007
ISBN: 1-4165-4019-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
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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