A serviceable addition to the extensive existing scholarship. Though intelligent and thoughtfully documented, considering...
National Book Award winner Bair (Saul Steinberg, 2012, etc.) examines the life and legend of infamous crime boss Al Capone (1899-1947).
In the 70 years since Capone’s death, America’s fascination with this underworld figure remains as strong as ever. He’s been the subject of countless biographies, his legendary status ingrained in popular culture as an inspiration for the 1930s pre-code film Scarface and, more recently, the popular HBO series Boardwalk Empire. The story of Capone’s rise and fall has long been familiar. He began his criminal career in Brooklyn during the height of Prohibition, involved with businesses ranging from bootlegging to gambling to prostitution, eventually leading to his supreme, albeit brief, reign in Chicago running multimillion-dollar operations. His surprisingly rapid downfall was caused by a conviction for tax evasion, and his prison stints included several years at the notorious Alcatraz Penitentiary. Upon his release in 1939, his final years were diminished by the long-terms effects of syphilis, which led to his early death. Bair attempts to uncover the more personal side of his story, claiming an authoritative position based on the cooperation of extended family members and exclusive access to personal and archival documents. Unfortunately, unlike the author’s previous excellent biographies, the results here are mixed, revealing few new facts or fresh insights. “My intention was to look at his public behavior within the context of his personal life, to see how the two might possibly be interrelated, and how the one might have had influence or bearing on the other,” she writes. “This was not an easy task, and like his family members I still wonder if it is possible to arrive at that curious postmodern concept of ‘the real truth.’ " In this case, it seems not; the “real” Capone remains a mystery.
A serviceable addition to the extensive existing scholarship. Though intelligent and thoughtfully documented, considering the source material and colorful subject, the book is a somewhat anemic read, lacking the narrative verve readers expect from Bair.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-385-53715-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
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
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
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