A vastly engrossing 19th-century rags-to-riches autobiography by the somewhat priggish, but shrewd and observant, founder of the Mellon family fortune. Thomas Mellon (18131908) wrote this 1885 memoir solely as a ``memento of affection'' for his descendants, anticipating ``that it will not be for sale in bookstores, nor any new edition published.'' Mellon was born in Ireland to farmers of modest means who emigrated to Poverty Point, near Pittsburgh, when he was five years old. He recounts a happy, if Spartan, upbringing there on his father's farm. A visit to Pittsburgh impressed the nine-year-old Mellon with the magnificence of the city, and at the age of 17, deciding against farming in favor of getting an education, Mellon suddenly stopped his father from purchasing a farm for him. Interspersing college attendance with teaching and farm chores, Mellon attended Western University in Pittsburgh, read law with a prominent Pittsburgh attorney, and became a member of the bar in 1838. He married in 1843 and had eight children; became an eminent lawyer and judge and a successful investor; and founded a predecessor of the Mellon Bank in 1870. Mellon's narrative of his happy family life and prominent, though not terribly eventful, career forms the backdrop for a wide variety of opinions and observations, sage and otherwise: on the importance of marrying for discretion rather than love; on the heavy responsibilities of a judge; on the Great Panic of 1873; on the declining work ethic and increased crime rate Mellon saw around him in newly industrialized America; and on the (not always positive) transformative effects of new inventions created in his lifetime. A charming memoir with some surprisingly meditative reflections, by an entrepreneurial leader of the time, on the bewildering changes wrought by 19th-century industrialism. (Photos and maps)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8229-3777-8
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Univ. of Pittsburgh
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
An authentic and fresh extension of the author’s successful Web series.
Writer, producer and director Rae, famous for her popular Web series, "The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl," channels her humor and attention to detail into this eponymous collection of personal essays about all the embarrassing moments that have made her who she is.
Sharp and able to laugh at herself, the author writes as if she's unabashedly telling friends a stream of cringeworthy stories about her life. Having grown up with the understanding that laughing at and talking about people was a form of entertainment and bonding, Rae continues the tradition by inviting readers into her inner circle and making her own foibles her primary focus. Almost 30, she opens up about nearly everything in her life, from her lifelong fear of being watched while eating in public to acutely awkward experiences with Internet dating and cybersex. The theme that race plays in this book is integral, although Rae's approach, as with all of her subjects, is decidedly humorous and lighthearted; she veers, always, toward a personal tone as opposed to one that's political or polemical. Her unwavering candidness, the sheer energy of her voice and the fact that she clearly finds herself to be terrific material make her a charismatic, if occasionally exasperating, narrator worth rooting for. Having been in a committed relationship for seven years, Rae unpacks how her Senegalese parents’ union contributed to her attitude (indifference) toward marriage. Some readers will find her proclamations and direct confessions offensive and be turned off; others may be offended but laugh out loud anyway. In Rae, her audience has landed on a singular voice with the verve and vivacity of uncorked champagne.
An authentic and fresh extension of the author’s successful Web series.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1476749051
Page Count: 210
Publisher: 37 Ink/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
Told with mettle and intelligence, Sebold’s story of fierce determination to wrest back her life from her rapist will...
A stunningly crafted and unsparing account of the author’s rape as a college freshman and what it took to win her case in court.
In 1981, Sebold was brutally raped on her college campus, at Syracuse University. Sebold, a New York Times Magazinecontributor, now in her 30s, reconstructs the rape and the year following in which her assailant was brought to trial and found guilty. When, months after the rape, she confided in her fiction professor, Tobias Wolff, he advised: “Try, if you can, to remember everything.” Sebold heeded his words, and the result is a memoir that reads like detective fiction, replete with police jargon, economical characterization, and film-like scene construction. Part of Sebold’s ironic luck, besides the fact that she wasn’t killed, was that she was a virgin prior to the rape, she was wearing bulky clothing, and her rapist beat her, leaving unmistakable evidence of violence. Sebold casts a cool eye on these facts: “The cosmetics of rape are central to proving any case.” Sebold critiques the sexism and misconceptions surrounding rape with neither rhetoric nor apology; she lets her experience speak for itself. Her family, her friends, her campus community are all shaken by the brutality she survived, yet Sebold finds herself feeling more affinity with police officers she meets, as it was “in [their] world where this hideous thing had happened to me. A world of violent crime.” Just when Sebold believes she might surface from this world, a close friend is raped and the haunting continues. The last section, “Aftermath,” has an unavoidable tacked-on-at-the-end feel, as Sebold crams over a decade’s worth of coping and healing into a short chapter.
Told with mettle and intelligence, Sebold’s story of fierce determination to wrest back her life from her rapist will inspire and challenge.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-684-85782-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1999
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