Moving and perceptive—a delightful, engaging memoir on aging.
Educator Kohl (She Would Not Be Moved, 2005, etc.) returns to the classroom, this time as a student of Chinese landscape painting.
Approaching his seventh decade, the author realized that the impression he had of himself as a “middle-aged guy” was at odds with society’s perception of him as old. He was feeling tired and vulnerable, worn down by his battles with the University of San Francisco administration over his social-justice program. As he wandered Clement Street in a predominantly Asian area of the city, Kohl noticed a storefront art school and decided to enroll. He hoped to learn more about landscape painting, which he had long admired; he also anticipated finding a fellow student who could teach him Chinese chess. When Kohl arrived for his first lesson, however, he discovered that all the other students were children, ages four to seven. Over the course of three years, the author learned the rituals and techniques of brush painting, moving from sketching monkeys and pandas to rendering graceful forests of bamboo. “I soon discovered that it was very difficult to breathe life into a bamboo,” he writes, “to have it move with wind, to have it serene on a quiet day, to have it bursting with leaves or barren or budding.” As the author relinquished his need to teach and learned to relish his role as student (albeit one who stuck out), the class served as a template for aging with enthusiasm and grace. The conclusion shows Kohl leaving the university to rebuild his professional life, re-energized by his experience and eager to embrace whatever time is left to him.
Moving and perceptive—a delightful, engaging memoir on aging.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-59691-052-2
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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