The former president presents his autobiography in the form of annotated letters, journal entries, a few speeches, and assorted documents. Like many collections of letters, this one is not uniformly interesting. Some of the scores of letters are dull, some superfluous, others patently self-serving (and readers may wonder if the many ellipses replace some of the most revealing passages). But Bush emerges as an uncomplicated, decent, thoughtful man—a man who unashamedly espouses the values of hearth, home, and friendship (and dog ownership!), who was at all times exactly what he appeared to be, who loved his wife (he says that he wants on his gravestone only these words: “He loved Barbara very much”), loved his children, loved his country. The letters are chronological—beginning with a section called “Love and War,” ending with “Looking Forward”—and chronicle in surprising detail Bush’s life from his 1942 enlistment in the navy to the present. In the letters (and in his accompanying notes) are some fascinating comments and events. Young Barbara (not yet his wife) was “so darn attractive”; Bill Clinton (then governor) was “a very nice man”; John Dean (the Watergate whistle-blower) was “a small, slimy guy”; Pat Buchanan could be “mean and ugly”; Barbara snores; Bush “never regretted” selecting Dan Quayle as his running mate; he was enraged at Newsweek for a cover story that suggested he was a wimp; and his “damnedest experience” was throwing up on the Japanese prime minister in 1992. Although Bush hates psychological profiles, he reveals a bit of his inner life here, most poignantly so when he admits that his loss to Clinton “hurt, hurt, hurt.” Somewhat nettlesome is Bush’s insistence on referring to just about everyone as a friend, close friend, or great friend. Please. One must search carefully in this large brown carpet to find the silver and golden threads—but they are there.
Pub Date: Oct. 5, 1999
ISBN: 0-684-83958-X
Page Count: 634
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999
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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