An entertaining memoir by a humorist who has gained enlightening insight into living an authentic life.
A memoir in essays by the former host of The Late Late Show.
In this follow-up of sorts to his 2009 memoir America on Purpose, comedian and former talk show host Ferguson has assembled an eclectic volume of introspective essays that broadly reflect on his life experiences and travels. The author covers some familiar ground from his previous memoir: his Scottish heritage, bouts with alcoholism and path to sobriety, marriages and children. Here, he directs his attention to some of his more memorable moments, including a conversation he had as a teenager with a young dying woman that has haunted him years later; an interaction with an Australian bartender that brought his issues with drinking into sharp focus; and confronting his fear of flying by taking flying lessons. “What flying taught me wasn’t just how to control an airplane,” he writes. “It taught me about perspective. Not just the view from the plane but about myself, where I am in the world and the extent of my abilities. It taught me to be honest about myself.” Ferguson rarely references other celebrities, refreshingly avoiding name-dropping. When he does mention a well-known figure, he uses it to great effect, as in his story about meeting Princess Diana. Within the context of a broader discussion of mortality, his few lines on Diana capture her luminous qualities. “I remember her eyes and her hair and her whiter-than-white teeth—like an American’s—but what I remember most vividly is how easy it was to make her laugh….I forgot about my nerves while I talked to her; she made me forget myself for a while. I can’t say anything much nicer about a person.” Ferguson is a natural storyteller, sharp-witted and acutely observant of his surroundings. He’s capable of maintaining a light touch yet his stories often transcend whatever humorous incidents may occur. Collectively, they serve as often poignant meditations on the long journey toward his late-middle-aged self.
An entertaining memoir by a humorist who has gained enlightening insight into living an authentic life.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-53391-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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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