A sensitive biography of a young dancer/choreographer who died of AIDS just two days after his first two dances premiered at the Joffrey Ballet in March 1991. Freelance journalist Solway uses Edward Stierle's short life to contrast the development of a prodigious talent with the tragic waste of early death. She looks at these intertwining themes from the personal perspective of Stierle, his family, and close friends as well as considering them as part of a larger picture: the effect of AIDS on the dance world and on the arts scene in general. Born in 1968, Stierle was raised in Florida, the youngest of eight children of a hardworking high school custodian. His mother ferried her talented son from age four on to endless classes and auditions; she trumpeted his achievements to all who would listen and tried to control his personal life even after he moved to Europe and then New York City. In spite of a short, stocky build, Stierle became a brilliant dance technician and at age 16 won a gold medal in the prestigious Prix de Lausanne competition. Shortly thereafter, he joined the Joffrey Ballet, where he was put directly into starring roles and encouraged to choreograph. A tireless self-promoter, Stierle alienated many colleagues and friends by his obsession with his own talent and career—although after his death some would charitably attribute his urgency to the knowledge that he was running out of time. Stierle's struggle with his bisexuality is fully recounted here. He attributed his infection to a 1987 encounter in California, and although he was virtually symptom-free for a couple of years, by 1990 the disease was rapidly progressing as he worked desperately to finish the two extraordinary ballets- -Lacrymosa and Empyrean Dances—that are his legacy. While keeping Stierle's story within the context of the larger AIDS tragedy, Solway's plain, measured prose makes clear the personal and professional magnitude of this individual loss. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-78894-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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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