An inspiring story that needs a unifying theme.
Kwong Weng’s debut memoir recounts a life of remarkable persistence.
Born in Toa Payoh in Central Singapore, Kwong Weng enjoyed a happy if modest upbringing. Failing to win a spot in a teacher’s program at the National University of Singapore, he joined the army, convinced of his academic inferiority. He was assigned to the Singapore Police Force, but he longed to become a commando and successfully petitioned his way into the training program. He advanced steadily through the ranks from second lieutenant to Ranger instructor. He was offered an opportunity to train with the U.S. Navy SEALs in San Diego, a notoriously grueling process. Midway through the training schedule, a car accident left him in a coma with a punctured lung and broken collarbone. He eventually recovered and was able to complete his certification, which the author describes as more a psychological than physical challenge involving the delicate negotiation of one’s expectations. Kwong Weng left the military at 35 to pursue work in the private sector—he became an intelligence analyst at a think tank—and despite his earlier academic floundering, earned a Ph.D. in security studies and crisis management at Glasgow University. Kwong Weng ended up working in Myanmar, and one of the highlights of this remembrance is his trenchant commentary on that small nation’s emergence from years of tyranny. It’s simply impossible not to be inspired by Kwong Weng’s life. He repeatedly overcame difficulties and was naturally optimistic when confronted by failure. The prose is simple, unadorned, and clear. The narrative meanders a bit here and there, especially when he discusses his family—an experienced editor would have trimmed some superfluous detail. Also, some challenges—like his failed marriage—are glossed. The principal difficulty of the book, though, is no coherent thread pulls it all together, despite his insistence that he reflects back on his life for the sake of inferring usable lessons. At one point, he offers the strangest advice one could find in a retrospective memoir: “Don’t bother looking back to get answers; it’s better to focus on the present.” This is an uplifting tale, but the author’s meditations on it are muddled.
An inspiring story that needs a unifying theme.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-9-81-463400-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Pte Ltd
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2016
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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