As a self-styled ``cultural diary,'' this sequel to Taulbert's rich memoir, Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored (1989), often fails to rise above a matter-of-fact blandness. In 1963, Taulbert, a hope-filled high-school valedictorian, left his home in the Mississippi Delta aboard the Illinois Central bound for St. Louis. His trip was in part sponsored by his father, a Baptist preacher whom he'd never seen. When they finally met in St. Louis, the man left the bewildered youth with relatives on North Spring Avenue and informed him that they ``probably'' would not have a relationship (Taulbert later describes sneaking into his father's church to hear him preach). The author's new extended family included bossy Mama Beulah and her daughter, Dora; Uncle Madison, who owned the grocery store above which the family lived; and friendly, gentle Aunt Clara. Taulbert shared a dingy room with a cousin, worked part-time at the store, and attended the Lively Stone Church of God. Here, he details how he acquired his ``city'' clothes, got a ``northern haircut,'' reacted to his first snowfall, and made his first friends. A highlight—for the author, anyway—is his first trip back home, where he got the royal treatment (including meals and southern hospitality that he describes with some warmth, although the magic phrase ``sweet potato pie'' becomes a bit tiresome). Taulbert's story continues with his first jobs in St. Louis—as a dishwasher and bank messenger—through his enlistment in the Air Force, boot camp in Texas, and stint in Maine during the Vietnam War. Some charming moments, but not the equal of Taulbert's first book as here he fails to mine personalities and situations seemingly laden with possibility.
Pub Date: July 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-933031-62-9
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Council Oak
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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