Courtship, travelogue, nature observations, and fish stories cover the map in this unfocused debut. Roorbach (English/Univ. of Maine at Farmington) pegs his narrative on his courtship of his wife, Juliet. He was 29 and she 20 when they met in the Hot Tin Roof disco in Martha's Vineyard. During a tumultuous eight-year relationship, they often broke up, but had their best moments together traveling—or so says the author, who conducts us from Belgium to Paris and Norway, across Canada, Martha's Vineyard, the Midwest, New Mexico, Colorado, Mt. St. Helens, and Jamaica. Along the way, several chapters on fishing (scant mention of Juliet here) are tossed in, followed by assorted nature essays. Juliet's wooing makes for some of Roorbach's more engaging writing, but also for some of his most unfortunate—``My Venus in Blue Jeans wore a paper Burger King crown and sang nonstop as we rolled past the cornfields.'' This sort of superficial treatment undercuts belief in the passion of the author's pursuit; when he discovers, for example, that Juliet has been cheating on him with regularity, he glosses over with the observation that ``my black eyes fairly dripped with tears.'' As a couple, Roorbach and Juliet strike many cute poses (``She stood naked and shivering, hugging herself, while I screwed the drilled Folger's cap onto our vessel, then sighed as I dumped hot river water over her in a perfect shower....We were clean. We were warm'') but possess all the depth of celluloid. In his chapters on nature, which could well be the nucleus of another book, Roorbach's observations of turkeys, hummingbirds, sunfish, and so forth are careful and intelligent, but uninformed by natural history or ecology. Nicely penned in places, but hamstrung by incessant meandering.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-395-57323-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1991
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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