by Ted Neill , Gordon Edward Cross and Robert Lewis Fowler ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 15, 2019
An emotionally affecting and historically instructive trio of remembrances.
Neill (Two Years of Wonder, 2018, etc.) investigates his late grandfather’s military service during World War II, in an attempt to better understand him.
Robert Lewis Fowler was always an elusive figure. Although he could be gregarious and loving, he also had a darker side, Neill says, and could be a “careless, reckless, belligerent drunk.” The author’s grandfather served in the Second World War and often candidly discussed the extraordinary experiences he had during that time, and after some cajoling, he finally wrote a short unpublished memoir about them. After he died in 2006, Neill felt driven to investigate his grandpa’s life, and to come to grips with the ways in which he was disappointing: “I had to delve into the words he had left me, study the context of the time, and read into the subtext of all he had left us in his memoir.” The author reproduces his grandfather’s recollections, which recount his decision to join the Nebraska National Guard in 1937, when he was anxious to escape “the privation of the failed farms and job shortages.” He eventually fought in France with the 35th Infantry Division in 1944, and he bravely participated in the battle for Saint-Lô, a victory that proved “pivotal” for the liberation of France and the triumph of the Allied powers on the western front. Neill also offers his own account of his independent research, and of times that he spent with his grandfather. In the process of further study about the war, Neill came across the memoir of another veteran, Gordon Edward Cross; he includes it here, as well, noting that Cross’ “lyrical style” offered a perspective that Fowler’s more “terse” prose didn’t capture. Neill offers a compilation of material that’s eclectically unconventional, and, despite its sundry elements, it comes together as an emotionally coherent whole. His commentary is literary and exceedingly thoughtful, even in its digressions; for example, he discusses his own yearslong infatuation with the work of Jack Kerouac and his final disillusionment with the artists of the Beat Generation. He also tells of how he came to understand the deep-seated contempt that some World War II veterans harbored for younger generations, including their own children: “It was born of their own displaced pain, born of loss, born of trauma. These angry fathers, counter-protesting in their uniforms, were protesting their own lost youth.” Both of the military memoirs are remarkable on their own; indeed, the elder Fowler’s meticulous, matter-of-fact descriptions somehow make the subject matter’s gruesomeness more vivid: “I rushed over to him and saw that a piece of shrapnel had gone through his mouth from the front and had gone through the throat and was in the back of his neck. He bled to death in a matter of a few seconds.” Overall, this is a moving book—a sensitively and lovingly constructed account that lacks even a whiff of false sentimentality. Neill also includes dozens of captivating photos, taken by Cross during the war.
An emotionally affecting and historically instructive trio of remembrances.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73095-973-8
Page Count: 289
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
Share your opinion of this book
More by Ludwig Bemelmans
BOOK REVIEW
developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
BOOK REVIEW
by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
BOOK REVIEW
by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Share your opinion of this book
More by Charlayne Hunter-Gault
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.