Thoroughly well written and constructed, with fresh views on the Kennedy presidency and the difficult path that led to...
In which JFK, proud son of Ireland, turns out to be a complete Anglophile.
Leaming had previously concentrated on Hollywood types—Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn—before turning to the life of Jackie (Mrs. Kennedy, 2001). Now she turns her attention to her celebrated husband’s life. We learn that when JFK realized that he could not supplant older brother Joe as the apple of his father’s eye, he determined to become the exact opposite, a slacker and slob. (The father, she notes, was as much an architect of appeasement at Munich as Chamberlain, which gave JFK yet another dauntingly high benchmark to match.) The descent didn’t last long, thanks in part to the influence of sister Kathleen, who died early—but not before Jack “had finally emerged as the man she had always insisted he could be.” Whereas many biographies of JFK are devoted to his playboy ways and alleged fondness for the easy life, Leaming demonstrates that he had toughness and resolve matched by a good mind; when he decided to reform himself in prep school, JFK daily dissected the New York Times, memorized every detail and constructed counterarguments to every statement. That was the habit of mind that Bill Clinton prized so much; in turn, JFK had learned it from a father figure, Winston Churchill, who exerted both metaphysical and actual influence over the Kennedy White House. Leaming is particularly effective at showing how Kennedy’s admiration for Churchill led to his consistent anticommunism.
Thoroughly well written and constructed, with fresh views on the Kennedy presidency and the difficult path that led to Camelot.Pub Date: May 22, 2006
ISBN: 0-393-05161-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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