by Trey Ellis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008
Ellis is adept at balancing his shaky personal tribulations with the emotional rewards of fatherhood, but his sluggish...
Father of two laments his failed marriage, then dives into Los Angeles’s dating pool.
American Book Award winner Ellis (Right Here, Right Now, 1999, etc.) begins his chatty, slow-paced memoir with the collapse of his nine-year marriage to Anna, a restless beauty who found life-altering enlightenment with New Age spirituality. Despite desperate sessions with a marriage counselor, Anna insisted that she and Ellis begin “sharing each other with the world” and eventually left him and their young children. Dejected, Ellis refocused his energies on Chet and Ava, not wanting to become, as he writes, yet another member of the neglectful group of single black fathers “more renowned for our absence than our presence.” Meanwhile, Anna changed her name to Carmen, got dreadlocks and introduced boyfriend Doug, a “white rasta shaman.” Ellis stayed busy writing fiction and screenplay adaptations, and soon his grief was replaced by a sense that he should move on as well and not be mired in the same dismal relationship trenches his parents were stuck in when he was growing up. Fast approaching 40, he carried on with divorce proceedings, vigorously house-hunted, embraced Mr. Mom-hood and entered Southern California’s dating scene by calling up women who had expressed an interest in him back when he was with Anna/Carmen. Sabina wanted more than Ellis could give; former nanny Angela and current nanny Lucia didn’t fare much better. He just didn’t click with Penny, a Londoner, and Internet hook-up Cynthia turned out to be “morbidly obese.” Will Parisian beauty Lauri or Italian looker Cris finally win his heart?
Ellis is adept at balancing his shaky personal tribulations with the emotional rewards of fatherhood, but his sluggish narrative may be too snarky to garner the single-parent sympathy he seeks.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59486-529-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Rodale
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2008
Share your opinion of this book
More by Trey Ellis
BOOK REVIEW
by Trey Ellis
BOOK REVIEW
by Trey Ellis
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by Elie Wiesel
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
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
Share your opinion of this book
© 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.