A rip-roaring adventure yarn lies at the heart of this recently discovered autobiography. Fortunately, editor Sprague, of Morehead State University, mostly lets Parker speak for himself, which the former slave does eloquently. So eloquently, in fact, that the reader wonders at Sprague's assertion that this account ``has the slight rough edge associated with oral history.'' The rough edges seem nearly all smoothed over—probably by Frank Moody Gregg, the white reporter to whom Parker dictated his wonderful tale. Parker (18271900) was a slave whose owners taught him to read and gave him a useful trade. Iron molding was so lucrative, ultimately, that Parker used his wages from it to buy his freedom. He started up a business of his own, married, and had several children, three of whom went on to graduate college. As fascinating as his revealed life was, however, the true excitement of this account comes from Parker's secret activities in the Underground Railroad in Ripley, Ohio, a hotbed of abolitionism when Parker moved there in 1849. Parker tells of traps and daring rescues, near escapes and noble sacrifices. One man gave up his own freedom so that a husband and wife could escape together. Another woman, the ``Eliza'' of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, crossed the Ohio River with her baby as the ice cracked under her and dogs barked at her heels. Although Parker was not directly involved in Eliza's escape, it is because of her that this autobiography exists at all: It was while researching Harriet Beecher Stowe's tale that Frank Moody Gregg stumbled onto the amazing Parker. The rest is history of the best kind—both highly entertaining and informative. (photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-393-03941-2
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1996
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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