The political and social intrigues of Civil War Washington are given vivid, gossipy immediacy in an unusual treasury of letters from a member of a prominent Union family to her naval officer husband. A true insider, Elizabeth Blair Lee—daughter of Lincoln advisor Francis Preston Blair and sister of both Union general Frank Blair and Postmaster General Montgomery Blair—was privy to the most intimate workings of Union politics. But it is ``Lizzie'' herself, straightforward, opinionated, and insightful, who emerges most forcefully from these 368 journal-like letters to her ``Dear Phil,'' Samuel Phillips Lee, himself a distant cousin to Robert E. Lee. Far from embodying the myth of passive 19th-century womanhood, Lee is revealed as keen observer of the unfolding conflict, with a sparkling irreverence (referring to the disliked President Buchanan as ``Old Buck'' and the proud Jefferson Davis as ``King Jeff'') and a stubbornness that finds her tirelessly agitating to get her husband better ships (``Hot after a steamer for you today''), important postings, and confirmation as an admiral. Living on the edge of battle (``This morning at daylight the morning guns seem very loud to me...it was the Battle at Bull Run—30 miles off''), Lee busies herself with volunteer work and the affectionate education of her young son, offering along the way an unprecedented picture of life in Washington's inner circle. Although lacking the intellectual acuity of Confederate journal-keeper Mary Boykin Chesnut, Lee proves herself more than worthy of serious scholarly treatment. Editor Laas (History/Missouri Southern State College), though, despite obviously careful research, presents her material in unimaginative, almost perfunctory, form, with confusing, repetitive footnotes, and a lack of substantive aids (e.g., a family tree to keep the various Blairs and Lees straight; more frequent historical notes). A valuable academic document, if ill-constructed for a wider audience. (Sixteen pages of illustrations—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-252-01802-8
Page Count: 600
Publisher: Univ. of Illinois
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1991
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
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
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