The story of an athlete whose career was cut short by a devastating injury is sadly all too common, but here it is told with unusual honesty and feeling. Twenty-year-old Roy was eleven seconds into his first collegiate hockey game as a Boston University freshman when a crash into the boards broke his neck. Assisted by Sports Illustrated writer Swift (coauthor of the bestselling My Sergei), Roy describes his growing-up years as the son of a hockey coach in Maine and his fierce love of the sport that dominated his life from an early age. His dreams of making the US Olympic team and then the National Hockey League ended on October 20, 1995, when the fourth vertebra in his spine was shattered, leaving him a quadriplegic. Parents of hockey-playing teens take note: On average, four players are similarly injured every year. After months in a Boston hospital and an Atlanta rehab center for spinal-cord injuries, he returned to his parents' home in Maine to recuperate. A year later he was back at Boston University, starting again as a freshman, this time not as a hockey star but in a wheelchair, struggling desperately to fit in. What distinguishes Roy's story is the degree to which he lets the reader share his sadness. The subtitle may speak of triumph, but the victories are heartbreakingly tiny ones, and there are more tears than cheers. While portions of the text slip into sports lingo that only hockey fans will fully grasp, no special knowledge is needed to understand the trauma suffered by the whole Roy family or to appreciate their warmth and caring and that of Roy's girlfriend and his empathetic coach. A true horror story with a mildly upbeat ending. (8 pages b&w photos)
Pub Date: Jan. 14, 1998
ISBN: 0-446-52188-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1997
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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