As one of the few women to hold a leadership position in the civil rights movement, Powers has a compelling story, but it is far overshadowed by her kiss-and-tell tales about her affair with Martin Luther King Jr. Powers makes a real effort here to narrate her evolution from small-town girl to the first black—and first woman—to be elected to the Kentucky state senate (in 1967). After two unfulfilling marriages and some equally unfulfilling jobs, she volunteered for a local campaign. She then advanced to become a member of the Executive Committee of the Jefferson County Democratic Party before running for office. Having only completed community college, Powers had to learn on the fly, and it's inspiring to read how she schooled herself in the arts of politics and government and sponsored several influential bills. As a political pioneer who served 21 years in the Kentucky Senate, Powers is a ripe prospect for a straight political memoir. But what she's really selling here is details of her affair with King. It's no secret that King had extramarital affairs, which were documented by the FBI. But never before has one of his lovers stepped forward to share the pillow talk. Powers tells how she was first approached by King, and she goes into specifics about how rendezvous were arranged. She writes that she saw him as a man, not a god, and how their friendship blossomed into romance. She doesn't mention King's wife or family until after she tells of the assassination, when she goes to the house to offer her condolences. The scene is straight soap opera- -the innocent wife and the repentant mistress meet at last. One can't help but wish that Powers had decided what book she really wanted to write—her political autobiography or her schoolgirlish romantic diary. (photos, not seen) (First printing of 30,000; author tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-88282-127-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: New Horizon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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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