Within the frame of this sad family drama, the author delivers deeply technical details of aviation and bomb-making.
A probing, technical exploration of the competition between the two eldest Kennedy brothers that probably drove Joe Jr. to volunteer for his last fatal flying mission.
Author of a range of histories, biographies and management books, Axelrod (Mercenaries: A Guide to Private Armies and Private Military Companies, 2014, etc.) offers both a thorough chronicle of this celebrated family during the years of Joseph Sr.’s stint as ambassador to London as well as a highly specialized look inside the technology that produced the pilotless V weapons (“vengeance weapons”) that terrorized London toward the end of the war. As ambassador from 1938 to 1940—a plum assignment for the former chair of the Maritime Commission that kept him out of President Roosevelt’s hair and far from running for office—Kennedy was known for his pro-appeasement, defeatist stance regarding Britain’s ability to withstand a German onslaught. While his shining eldest son, Joe. Jr., largely held his same isolationist views, his sickly second son, Jack, showed more backbone, according to Axelrod’s assessment of JFK’s 1940 Harvard thesis–turned–first book, Why England Slept. Nonetheless, when war broke out, the two sons vied to volunteer for the more dangerous mission: Jack became a PT boat jockey and made a spectacularly heroic mission in the Solomon Islands when his PT-109 was rammed by a Japanese destroyer. Joe Jr., on the other hand, jealous, bitter and itching to distinguish himself, went from training to fly the Martin PBM Mariner “flying boat” to joining the top-secret Project Anvil/Operation Aphrodite strategic flying mission, which targeted the launching fortresses of the V weapons at Pas-de-Calais, France. Using recycled, war-weary B-17s equipped with bombs, the mission employed highly experimental remote-control technology that frequently backfired—in Joe Jr.’s case, on Aug. 12, 1944, his PB4Y-1 blew up over Suffolk. Throughout the book, Axelrod chronicles both the Kennedy family dynamics and the technology of the aircraft.
Within the frame of this sad family drama, the author delivers deeply technical details of aviation and bomb-making.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-137-27904-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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