A straightforward account that will likely appeal most to the author’s own family members and friends.
Patterson (I Can See Back, 2017) gives a grandfatherly account of his life, from childhood to retirement and beyond.
With accompanying black-and-white photos—the old-fashioned kind, in which the subjects didn’t smile—the author begins his memoir with memories of his parents. But the narrative isn’t limited to his own personal recollections, as the short biographies go all the way back to 1908, when his father was “one of the first children ever born in Oklahoma” after it became a state. After a brief but comprehensive overview of his parents’ young lives, Patterson begins his own life story with the early days of his youth. He strikes a tone that’s very much like that of a grandparent sitting in an armchair by a fireplace, walking a grandkid through his life, stage by stage: through his childhood, teenage years, college years, marriage, and time in the Navy. He also addresses his work as an engineer for Shell, his retirement, and his remarriage after being widowed. Expectedly, some of the stretches are a bit humdrum, relating more mundane episodes of life. But in between are more interesting, emotionally laden accounts, including stories of his religious devotion and his marriage to his first wife, to whom he was married for 56 years until her death. The prose style is simple and unassuming—simply a recounting of life events, not a dramatic story. Still, most people would wish that their own parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents had taken the time to clearly write down a straight-ahead chronology. The no-frills style does have a charm to it, though, and it gives readers a true peek into the past.
A straightforward account that will likely appeal most to the author’s own family members and friends.Pub Date: June 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5336-4315-5
Page Count: 137
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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