Hard on the heels of the death of one princess, Glatt gathers info and gossip about the world’s other favorite princess, Grace Kelly of Monaco, and her three rebellious children, Prince Albert and Princesses Caroline and Stephanie. It’s difficult to judge the merits of an exposÇ such as this one without looking at it in the context of current times. True, the seemingly fairy tale fate of glamorous Hollywood movie star Grace Kelly becoming Princess Grace of Monaco in 1956 offers the perfect fodder for an escapist read, but one still has to question Glatt’s (Lost in Hollywood: The Fast Times and Short Life of River Phoenix, 1995, etc.) timing. Short paragraphs and out-of-place comments seem inserted after-the-fact to connect the Monaco royals to Diana and capitalize on the current hot topic of paparazzi invasion. Whereas a biography of a deceased public figure doesn—t necessarily have to become tabloid material, Glatt focuses his on the remarkably irresponsible behavior and embarrassingly ill-informed choices made by Monaco’s ruling family after the death of Princess Grace. This direction taints Glatt’s intentions (whatever they may really be) with a gossipy cast. The author did obtain the cooperation of Prince Albert and others close to the family, but that doesn—t necessarily transform his book from a gratuitous ogling into an enlightening explanation of their tragic misfortune. As for the writing, Glatt repeats himself: several anecdotes and quotes show up again and again in only slightly different form. However, for what it’s worth, Glatt understands how to string together a ton of minute, only momentarily intriguing details into an action-packed, larger-than-life TV movie of the week. For those interested in glimpsing how royalty live, this is probably, and perhaps regrettably, a winner.
Pub Date: Oct. 19, 1998
ISBN: 0-312-19326-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
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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