A wonderful story of a woman who managed to achieve independence and leave her mark in a world not quite ready for her.
Biography of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte (1875–1879), who fought against the conventions of her time in “a country that lauded self-interest and self-fulfillment for its men but confinement and sacrifice for their wives.”
Berkin (History/Baruch Coll.; Civil War Wives, 2009, etc.) tells the story of a strong woman who succeeded in spite of herself. The young Baltimore beauty was not only intelligent, but also blessed with a quick wit. She was a good friend of Dolley Madison, who introduced her to the best of Washington society. Brash and dressed in the newest shockingly bare styles out of France without a thought to opinion, she found that Jérome Bonaparte was just what she was looking for. The youngest brother of Napoleon, he did not enjoy the navy and left his post in the Caribbean to see America. Jérome and Elizabeth fell madly in love; after a lengthy fight with her father, the couple married in late 1803. Napoleon was livid and ordered his brother home to France—without that American girl. Elizabeth was banned from entering any port in Europe. Jérome finally succumbed to his brother’s demand, and his return to France in 1805 was the end of the marriage. After Napoleon annulled the marriage, she strove for her son’s legitimacy, first with the emperor himself and eventually with Napoleon III and finally in the courts of France, all to no avail. This story would be that of just another headstrong girl who married badly if it weren’t for her fierce independence. She went to Europe seeking intellectual freedom and an identity, carefully budgeted her scant funds, invested wisely and became one of America’s first self-made women.
A wonderful story of a woman who managed to achieve independence and leave her mark in a world not quite ready for her.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-307-59278-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2013
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
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
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