Mezrich probably won’t sway the skeptical, but fans of Art Bell and company will find all the affirmation they need.
Roswell? Area 51? In a book to make X-Files fans twitch in excitement, Mezrich (Once Upon a Time in Russia: The Rise of the Oligarchs—A True Story of Ambition, Wealth, Betrayal, and Murder, 2015, etc.) connects dots we didn’t even know existed.
“Is there a dead cow in the back of this truck?....It’s not the whole cow.” Chuck Zukowski is the sort of rural cop who calls for a geekier Dennis Weaver or Tommy Lee Jones to portray him, a sheriff’s reserve deputy in the high country of Colorado—geekier because he’s employed in the tech industry and no stranger to the intricacies of computers and telescopes. Yet, Zukowksi is also one of those fellows who “scour newspapers, check Internet boards, searching for anything that mentioned UFOs or unexplained sightings.” Then there’s the business of the livestock mutilations, a specialty of his, which explains the presence of those half-cows in the bed of his pickup truck: “He hadn’t intended to cart his current mutilation into Denver,” writes Mezrich of a typical Zukowski moment, “but as with any vocation, sometimes life got in the way.” As the author notes in a narrative that is occasionally redacted, these mutilations would seem to be endemic to Colorado, dating back to the 1960s and accompanied by sightings of UFOs. The tangled history of those mutilations and the efforts of Colorado citizens and politicians to find an explanation for them is worth the cover price of the book alone, but there’s more: Mezrich joins the odd facts of those unfortunate dead cows and horses to secret landing strips, shadowy corporations, and sunglasses-clad government agents, the usual stuff of every other ET exposé. The author does it better than most, but, apart from a nicely dramatic narrative, there’s not much definitive in the findings. Something’s clearly happening out there in the high meadows and along desert highways, but what it is remains a matter of speculation.
Mezrich probably won’t sway the skeptical, but fans of Art Bell and company will find all the affirmation they need.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-3552-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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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