Bloom rescues an important figure from the dustbin of history. Burns receives the storyteller she deserves and can now...
In his latest book, Bloom (Journalism/Univ. of Iowa; Tears of Mermaids: The Secret Story of Pearls, 2009, etc.) chronicles the life and exploits of Inez Burns (1886-1976), a flamboyant, unapologetic libertine who rose to prominence as the most notorious abortionist in California in the first half of the 20th century.
Born in San Francisco to a hardscrabble, no-nonsense mother and an alcoholic father, Burns refused the limited life options available to women of the era. Taken under the wing of a charming suitor who also happened to be an abortionist, she learned how to perform the procedure herself. Before long, she opened her own facility and became the most in-demand abortion provider in California as well as a major player in San Francisco’s underworld. Eventually, her success provoked the ire of up-and-coming district attorney Pat Brown. His attempts to bring her down are at the heart of the narrative in the form of an engaging courtroom drama. Bloom’s San Francisco is almost a character in itself, as he provides a rich history of the city as well as insight into the changing tides of 20th-century culture, especially regarding nascent feminism and the struggle for reproductive rights. While Burns possessed many traits worthy of admiration, she was not without a dark side, and Bloom’s portrait is by no means that of a saint, despite his sympathy for his subject. The author’s prose is breezy and conversational, and his subject is controversial enough to make the book read more like a thriller than an academic biography, despite the breadth of scholarship on display. The book is less engaging when Bloom strays from his main subject to report on the large cast of supporting characters. Thankfully, the author seems to understand this, and he keeps the spotlight shining squarely on the mercurial Burns.
Bloom rescues an important figure from the dustbin of history. Burns receives the storyteller she deserves and can now occupy her proper place in the intersectional histories of feminism, law, and the San Francisco underworld.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68245-009-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Regan Arts
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
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
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