A game bag stuffed to the limit by letters between a father and son swapping fishing and hunting stories. When veteran novelist Bourjaily (Old Soldier, 1990, etc.) and his son, Philip (a freelancer publishing in Field & Stream, Sports Afield, etc.), are approached to write a book that will ``provide insights into the character of the angler in today's society...what his act of fishing means to him,'' they start right in writing back and forth to each other, going straight for a slew of fishing stories and then swinging into the nature of hunting deer, turkey, partridge, snapping turtles, and more. Ever wonder what it's like to hunt alligators? Vance puts you with him in a battered aluminum john boat steered with a small outboard motor by his Cajun friend, the two hunters confidently armed with a battered .22 and half a broomstick with a hook. Vance can't stop thinking, though, that the boat is 15 feet long and many gators run 12 feet and 600 pounds. Meanwhile, Philip is passing the pheasant season in Iowa in a terrible slump: He's missed 13 roosters in a row, despite these birds being scorned by many duck hunters as being so big and slow that killing them is ``like shooting kites.'' When Philip tells his hunting partner that he has to go back to the truck for more bullets because ``I've only got five left, and I'm saving the last one for myself,'' his friend advises, ``Save two. You'll probably miss.'' Back in Louisiana, Vance writes that he's hiring marsh Cajuns for duck-season opening: ``We could have easily won the war in Vietnam,'' he says, ``if we'd sworn in a squad of them and told them that the Viet Cong were good to eat, but that they were out of season and there was a limit of two of them.'' Fine fare for those who like to swap stories over the campfire—or who just enjoy getting the real, unadorned McCoy. (First serial to Field & Stream)
Pub Date: Oct. 25, 1993
ISBN: 0-87113-556-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1993
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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