Old-fashioned, wistful stories that will appeal to fans of Geist’s previous books.
The Emmy Award–winning correspondent of CBS Sunday Morning reminisces about the wonderful days of his youth.
During the 1960s, Geist (Way off the Road: Discovering the Peculiar Charms of Small Town America, 2007, etc.) spent his summers working at a resort—the Arrowhead Lodge—owned by his aunt and uncle. In the middle of nowhere, down a winding road, the lodge provided the author with a place to work and make friends, drink beer, and meet girls. In this memoir, Geist takes readers back to those bygone days, sharing his escapades of what life was like for a young man with few experiences under his belt. The author often uses folksy humor to contrast those times with today. “A gas station attendant was a guy who filled your gas tank, checked your oil, coolant and battery fluids, and tire pressure,” he writes. “But those old gas stations did not sell hats and T-shirts, sixty-two different candy bars, fifty-seven kinds of refrigerated beverages, including twenty brands of bottle water. There were no ‘brands’ of water, only God’s. It was free. I know. Sounds crazy.” Threaded throughout this lightweight narrative are amusing, harmless memories of working in the kitchen during rush hour, cleaning out the open-air septic system, and fraternizing with the girls who moved in and out of Geist’s orbit. His portrayals of his fellow co-workers and his family are well-rounded, showing the good and bad in each individual. Geist’s writing is consistently nostalgic as he shows how those carefree summers helped mold him into the man he became. The book is a quick, pleasant read that effectively reflects how his time at the lodge showed him that “life is more difficult and rewarding and fun when you manage to do things your way.”
Old-fashioned, wistful stories that will appeal to fans of Geist’s previous books.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5387-2980-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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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