Eccentric biography of an even more eccentric genius. Following scores of biographies and critical analyses on legendary filmmaker Orson Welles (Citizen Kane, etc.) with yet another life story must have been a daunting task, even for so clever and prolific a film historian as Thomson (Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick, 1992, etc.). Notably, Rosebud has been closely preceded by the massive first volume of Simon Callow's two- volume biography (Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu, 1996). Thomson, in his far shorter single volume, can't begin to compete with the dense details of Callow's work. Instead he tries a different tack: He blends biography with quirky digressions and diversions. Sometimes he directly addresses the reader (occasionally in the sonorous tones of a Wellesian narrator), and sometimes he conducts imaginary conversations with his ``publisher''—all in an attempt to fathom the compelling, self-destructive personality of his subject. Unfortunately, these asides are often coy, superficial, or redundant. But as he moves deeper into Welles's film work, the digressions begin to drop away, as if Thomson were only distracting himself while dealing with Welles's theater and radio work, in which he's clearly not terribly interested (and on which Callow is brilliant). When he reaches the films Thomson begins to shine. He richly conveys the excitement that the films still generate, and gives provocative insights into their meanings. History and analysis deftly merge in an effective presentation of Welles's erratic final years. Still, the result is more satisfying in patches than as a whole. Perhaps Thomson should have found a forum other than biography in which to express his love of Orson Welles. A mulligan stew of a book that is best read as a complement to, rather than as a substitute for, other books on Welles. (69 photos) (First printing of 50,000)
Pub Date: June 2, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41834-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1996
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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