Both funny and darkly poignant.
A Denver-based comic’s account of losing his younger sister to suicide and learning to cope with her death.
Cayton-Holland, who created and stars in the sitcom Those Who Can’t, grew up in a family under the guidance of “flower children” parents, who raised him and his two sisters “to rage against the injustices of the world.” But exposure to the suffering of others, combined with his own natural hypersensitivity, caused the author to seek ways of “circumventing the hurt and upset.” As a child, he developed personal rituals—he was later diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder—to make sure “life as I knew it didn’t collapse.” As he got older, Cayton-Holland discovered that comedy also helped him feel better about the world and himself. The childhood bits he performed in front of his parents, schoolmates, and, later, audiences at Denver’s premier comedy clubs eventually led to a career as a respected stand-up comic. But his brilliant and beloved younger sister Lydia, who shared both her brother’s hypersensitivity and quirky sense of humor, chose to live a quiet life outside the hustle and bustle of Denver, fostering “dogs and cats and musicians and outcasts.” The family gently tried to prod her toward a career, but she refused until finally Cayton-Holland convinced her to return to Denver to help him at his comedy shows. Not long afterward, Lydia had the first of several breakdowns. While she struggled with depression and exasperated family members with her despair, the author’s career soared. The reality of just how serious her illness was only registered when Lydia killed herself in 2012. Devastated, Cayton-Holland and his family began a long and painful journey toward emotional healing that forced them to learn difficult lessons in letting go and self-forgiveness. This candid and humane book not only memorializes the life of a beloved sister; it also celebrates the gift of awakened spiritual and emotional sensibilities that loss inevitably leaves in its wake.
Both funny and darkly poignant.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-7016-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
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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