A fluffy diversion for celebrity-obsessed readers.
A tale of Kardashian Inc.
If John Oliver devoted a show to the famous family, it might share a bit of the snark and incredulity of this report from Oppenheimer (RFK, Jr.: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream, 2015, etc.), a prolific author of unauthorized biographies. Readers looking for gossip about the Kardashians’ present lives may be left wanting, but for lovers of 1980s prime-time drama, the author delivers with the origin story of the infamous crew. Anyone who has wondered how this “dysfunctional family with little to no discernable talent besides self-promotion” became a cultural phenomenon will enjoy Oppenheimer’s take. The author is clearly one of the unconverted, and the book feels like a companion volume to Kris Jenner’s 2011 memoir, an effort to annotate and correct the matriarch's own embellished account. He fills in the gaps and calls out Kris’ version as we learn about the doomed first husband, Robert Kardashian, second husband, (formerly) Bruce Jenner, as well as Kris’ climb to the top of Beverly Hills society. Robert, famous for his involvement in the O.J. Simpson trial, gets the kindest treatment here, with a close second going to third-born Khloe Kardashian. She appears as a child whose paternity might be suspect but whose innocence and guilelessness set her apart—at least to Oppenheimer—from the rest of the family. By far the most entertaining aspect, however, is the author’s blatant incredulousness at the history Kris wrote herself. He’s not buying it, quoting her memoir with eyes clearly rolled, featuring such caveats as “she actually avowed” and “suggesting…that she possessed a religious leaning.” The book concludes with an overview of the current clan’s net worth and doings as well as a chilling prediction of what’s next for the ever ambitious Kris Kardashian Jenner: a run for the White House and the ultimate ratings grab.
A fluffy diversion for celebrity-obsessed readers.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-08714-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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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