A simple, warmhearted celebration of small-town living.
A Washington Post data reporter debuts with an account of his move from the D.C. area to a rural county in northwestern Minnesota.
In 2015, Ingraham published a dismissive comment about Red Lake County, Minnesota, and the immediate social media reactions from some people there prompted him to visit. When he got there, he realized that he was falling for the place. He convinced his wife that they should move there for a while. It was a great place, he thought, to bring up their twin sons, still of preschool age—not to mention quite a bit less expensive than D.C. So they packed up and moved, where they were, again, surprised to discover how comfortable they felt—even though Red Lake “is a place so lacking in superlatives that proclaiming itself ‘the only landlocked county…that is surrounded by just two neighboring counties’ is the closest thing to a boast that you’ll find on the county’s website.” Seldom is heard a discouraging word in Ingraham’s text; the only time he really complains, which he does in a light, even ironic way, is about the local food, especially the pizza (barely edible). The family quickly adapted to the entirely new small-town culture and found everyone welcoming and even sort of Mayberry-ish. Ingraham deals with a number of fundamental issues: health care (things were farther away than in the densely populated East), schools (he had a great experience with the local school dealing with one of his sons), social life (his wife won a seat on the town council; he went deer hunting), and, of course, the extreme cold of northern Minnesota. The author devotes a small section to politics, registering his belief that mass-media portrayals of small-town rural America are not sufficiently nuanced. Throughout, Ingraham writes with the conviction of one who has found—as least for him—tranquility and truth.
A simple, warmhearted celebration of small-town living.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-286147-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 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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