A singularly compelling memoir.
A father finds his life transformed when his son is born with cerebral palsy, as illuminated through this masterfully written memoir.
The structuring of this book, by Venice-based Brazilian author Mainardi, might initially seem overly precious or gimmicky. Each very short section (a paragraph or two, a photo, a drawing) is numbered, with each representing a step taken by the author’s son, Tito, before he inevitably falls. The 424 steps here represent a monumental achievement, for, as the author notes, the “sixteen steps Tito took on 28 September 2005 became, some months later, twenty-seven steps. Some months later, the seven steps became forty-four steps….” Ultimately, the structuring provides a sturdy frame that allows Mainardi to avoid sentimentality or wallowing in grief (or rage at the Venetian hospital that bungled the birth), while showing how the unconditional love the parents have for their son has transformed the author’s world. He connects everything to Tito’s destiny—from the architecture that drew him to the hospital to “Hitler’s ‘euthanasia’ program [that] offered ‘mercy killings’ to those whose lives were ‘worthless’ or ‘not worth living’ ” to Neil Young’s experience with two sons born with cerebral palsy and the music that resulted in such unlikely juxtapositions as, “No one falls better than James Joyce. Apart from Lou Costello.” As the author of four published novels and a column in the Brazilian magazine Veja, Mainardi now thinks of himself: “I am Tito’s father. I exist only because Tito exists.” Tito emerges as collaborator in the book—not as a cause or a type or a symbol but as a happy, well-adjusted, well-loved individual with a life well worth living.
A singularly compelling memoir.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59051-700-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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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