An unremarkable memoir, but Disney fans will probably appreciate the insider view.
A close-up of life at Disney World.
Mitchell’s memoir speaks to a popular fantasy of running away to join the workforce at the iconic vacation destination: “All my life, Disney has been a kind of sanctuary for me, a place that felt safe when everything else was going fuzzy.” The California-bred author had worked as a semi-professional skateboarder and freelance photographer when cascading personal crises propelled him toward an impulsive move to the Magic Kingdom, where he quickly found work in photo processing. He was instantly fascinated by the intricacies of Disney culture: hidden messages in park architecture, endless regulations enforced by prissy managers and a high-school–like system of cliques with the employees who play “characters” at the top. “Anyone who believed in fairies could work, live, eat, drink, and date entirely within the Disney matrix without ever leaving Disney property,” he writes. “And from what I could tell, it wasn’t uncommon.” Initially disdained, Mitchell figured out a way to break the rules, becoming known as the “out of character” photographer—Goofy smoking, for instance—which ingratiated him with the snooty inner circle of Cast Members. Soon he committed the ultimate sin, when an attractive co-worker (“Dale”, as in Chip ’n Dale) initiated him into the SOP (Sex on Property) Club: “I was if I could almost see the spirit of Walt shaking his head, sorely disappointed.” Eventually, Mitchell became disillusioned in Orlando, especially after he was turned down for a coveted “face character” role of Aladdin, and learned that his friends and girlfriend at Disney were not the carefree perpetual adolescents they pretended to be. Mitchell effectively captures the inside minutiae of working at Disney, which will surely interest fans, and its surreal effect on the Central Florida landscape. However, the prose is often rambling and heavy on adjectives and clumsy similes.
An unremarkable memoir, but Disney fans will probably appreciate the insider view.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8065-3128-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Citadel/Kensington
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2009
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
