Life as a loser makes wan humor. Wait for the movie.
Another excessively candid memoir from a stand-up comedian.
As Nichols reached middle age after having failed at just about everything, his feckless life somehow became the focus of an independent film. Despite his well-heeled, WASPy genes, the author is afflicted with a speech impediment, ADD, dyslexia and a mild case of Tourette’s. A slob with poor hygiene, he stutters and is fearful of New Balance shoes. Dysfunction is his shtick. He’s botched virtually every endeavor since boarding school and college, during which he concentrated solely on alcohol, various drugs and misbehavior. After a disastrous bike tour through Europe, Nichols landed on Wall Street, where he lasted for one year. A slew of odd jobs followed, including house painting, a stab at dictionary sales and, mostly, substitute teaching to supplement the college and club bookings. The lonesome loser sank a yacht and burned down his family’s lake house. He spent a lot of time at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, which he attended to meet women and push his stand-up career. These days the author abstains from booze and blow, but he notes that he “put down the drink and instantly picked up sugar, coffee, and cigarettes—all okay and sanctioned within the confines of society.” He’s got a girl and a license as a fishing-boat captain. Comically, Nichols focuses on bodily conditions and emissions. Like many contemporary stand-up comics, the material is simply sullied shock talk masquerading as whimsical banter. Despite avowals that it’s all quite funny, the story of how one 40-year-old juvenile became a better person is really just indecorous solipsism.
Life as a loser makes wan humor. Wait for the movie.Pub Date: July 7, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4165-9916-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2009
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
