A biography of a royal beauty of the Victorian age who was married too young to Emperor Franz Josef and became empress of Austria-Hungary. Veteran biographer Sinclair (Corsair: The Life of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1981, etc.) profiles Elisabeth—of noble Bavarian blood and the bearer of four children (including the notorious Rudolf of Mayerling), despite a philandering husband, who, it was believed, infected her with a mysterious malady. As a young wife and mother, she had to contend with a domineering mother-in-law who took control of the royal children. Elisabeth, a fine horsewoman who loved the outdoors, strove for health and beauty. Bored with ceremonial court life and crowds, she broke away from Vienna and family, seeking solitude. Constantly wandering with a large contingent of servants, she lived in various palaces across Europe, where her glamorous style set fashion standards for 30 years. Her devotion to oppressed people like the Hungarians and the Irish, among whom she lived for long periods, added to her popularity—with everyone except their Austrian and British rulers. Franz Josef gave carte blanche to her expensive tastes and wanderlust; in return, she condoned his liaisons. Sinclair capably provides the historical background as time was beginning to run out for the inbred ruling dynasties of the Hohenzollerns, Hapsburgs, Romanovs, and others. Feared anarchists and socialist assassins stalked the nobility as the nationalist powers were about to destroy one another in WWI. Elisabeth was knifed to death by an assassin in 1898. A well-written, thoroughly researched story of a popular and beautiful empress, who, while self-indulgent, sought a life of privacy and peace, and showed sympathy and charity toward the poor. She died tragically, overwhelmed by publicity and away from royal life. Sinclair finds contemporary parallels in the life of Diana, Princess of Wales. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-312-19852-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
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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