Reflections from horse country about equine bloodlines, as well as the author’s own. (20 b&w illustrations)
The offspring of a journalist tells of equine bloodlines and, not incidentally, his own family history.
Growing up, newcomer Sullivan, son of quirky sportswriter Mike Sullivan, was never a sports fan. Not long before he died, his father recalled for him the astonishing beauty of Secretariat when that great horse took the Derby a generation ago. The father’s reverie awakened something within the son. The result is an entertaining, often erudite history of horse matters beginning even before the animal became friendly to mankind. Sullivan fils reviews the use of the stud book and matters eugenic, both equine and human. He traces the lore of American thoroughbred racing from Britain, through Virginia to the Blue Grass State (which is blessed with favorable limestone geology) and on to Churchill Downs. Virtually all horsehood is considered, from hobby horses to full-blooded Arabians, horses in war and peace, literature and art, glory and commerce, history and fable, horses as symbol and horses as presence, horses bound for pasture and horses destined for the boneman. The preparation and auction of yearlings, the art and practice of training and the industry of racing all receive avid attention as we are taken to the author’s old Kentucky home and, finally, to Belmont. Sullivan is sad to note “that all this horseracing business is about the rich, for the rich are hideous. There is nothing they cannot ruin.” The diverting facts and opinion comprise very agreeable reportage. It is unreined information, cantering or tantivy. But it is not simply a love letter to horseflesh; it is a warm elegy for a man, a father, as well.
Reflections from horse country about equine bloodlines, as well as the author’s own. (20 b&w illustrations)Pub Date: April 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-374-17281-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
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
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