by Tatyana Elmanovich ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 10, 2018
While it delivers an enticing glimpse of the past and the afterlife, this account becomes convoluted at times.
A semiautobiographical work explores one woman’s ancestors and Russian history.
As Elmanovich (In Eternity, 2015, etc.) asserts at the outset, the pages that follow are based on recordings of her conversations with ghosts. The author, born to a Russian family living in Estonia, settled in the United States at the age of 55. Now in her 80s, she is a medium able to “hear voices of spirits and angels.” The specters in this collection tend to be deceased family members, some of whom Elmanovich never met while they were living. All have a connection to Russia and Estonia. There is the author’s Aunt Tatyana, who died at 11 and explains the reasons for her death. Elmanovich’s Uncle Jurik speaks from beyond the grave about the World War II siege of Leningrad. Her maternal grandmother, Anna, with the aid of a spirit helper named Hildegard, explains the circumstances of a horrendous marriage. The ghosts do not merely speak of the earthly realm. They have much to say about the “4D astral world” and some of it is surprising. For instance, cocaine is used by some in the afterlife to alleviate their woes. As one user explains, “Narcotics lift me to another vibration for a while.” An afterlife pregnancy even proves to be a possibility. Throughout the book, there are also bits and pieces of the author’s own life. She is a former film critic whose decades of experience have taught her that all people are flawed. As she explained to her brother, “Ideal people do not exist in reality.” Elmanovich’s ambitious work covers a wide range of material in a fairly small amount of pages. A family history of the Bolshevik Revolution, existence in an astral world, and the difficulties of coming to America are captivating topics that could each fill a volume. The variety of intriguing subjects provides much to take in, though the interweaving can be clumsy. No sooner are readers told of the terror brought upon civilians by Kronstadt sailors in revolutionary Russia than shortly thereafter they learn of a Korean War veteran named Jose Martinez, a clairvoyant who died before his 60th birthday of a drug overdose. And though the many pieces are sometimes jumbled or wild (astral world narcotics?), the book presents a number of potent points even for the skeptical. For example, discussing the horrors of Leningrad is no simple matter for a spirit like Jurik. The work explains how survivors know that their words will “never reach their listeners’ mind and emotions completely” because those without direct experience cannot fully appreciate what happened. Nevertheless, Jurik’s tales still have much to tell the audience. Similarly, readers may want to know more of the author’s story. Her abilities as a medium are stated as matter-of-factly as her arrival in America. But what does it fully mean to be a medium? When and how did she know she had this ability? The book ultimately covers a multitude of topics yet it leaves a host of unanswered questions.
While it delivers an enticing glimpse of the past and the afterlife, this account becomes convoluted at times.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2018
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
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
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