An intermittently interesting look at a character who was undoubtedly raw material for Ring Lardner and Damon Runyon.
The tale of Freeman Bernstein, a Broadway grifter who scammed Nazi officials on the eve of World War II.
Roll Call columnist Shapiro (One-Car Caravan: On the Road with the 2004 Democrats Before America Tunes In, 2003), Bernstein’s great-nephew, first heard of his relative’s coup as a bit of family lore. Research proved it to be the capstone of a long career of dirty deals, including bankruptcies, jail time in at least two countries, and many unpaid bills. Born in upstate New York in 1873, Bernstein was the son of Polish Jews who came to the U.S. five years earlier. His first scrape with the law came at age 13, when he was nabbed for lifting $10 from a swimmer’s unguarded pants. Freed on a technicality, he took the lesson that there’s always a way to beat the law. A long string of scams and scuffles followed. He gravitated to the horseplayers and sharpers of the Saratoga racing season and took to booking acts in local burlesque theaters. He soon developed a reputation for stiffing the performers, and he became a well-known Broadway character, with frequent appearances in the pages of Variety. A bright spot was his marriage to May Ward, a minor vaudeville star whose taste for the finer things of life matched Bernstein’s. Shapiro chronicles Bernstein’s career in depth, thanks in part to his frequent mentions in Variety. But after a while, Bernstein’s exploits lose appeal; few of the ways to stiff the innocent inspire admiration. Shapiro deploys a wise-guy style reminiscent of the showbiz columnists of Bernstein’s heyday, but this also wears thin. Reader interest is kept alive awaiting Bernstein’s crowning coup: bilking the Nazis by delivering scrap metal instead of the valuable nickel they paid for. Occasional glimpses of better-known showbiz figures provide color—Bernstein crossed paths with Mae West, Will Rogers, Sophie Tucker, and other real stars of the era—but nothing can really make Bernstein himself likable.
An intermittently interesting look at a character who was undoubtedly raw material for Ring Lardner and Damon Runyon.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-16147-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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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