Monninger artfully revives “Two Ton Tony.” You’ll never be able to say you never hoid uh da bum.
A championship match-up between Italian-American boxer Tony Galento and legend Joe Louis is the focus here, but also the lens through which this brisk and entertaining history looks at the state of the nation in the 1930s.
The pride of Orange, NJ, “Two Ton Tony” Galento was never the glamorous sort. Squat, hairy, balding, Galento brawled more than he boxed, sporting a crushing left hook that earned him 56 knockouts in 110 career matches. Heavyweight Galento was also a media darling: Beer, cigars, late nights and large meals formed the bulk of his training regimen. He could yodel like Tarzan, and, when asked how he thought he’d do against an opponent, he answered, “I’ll moida da bum.” His nickname came not from his impressive girth, but from his first regular day job, hauling ice. Joe Louis—elegant and in his prime, already the undisputed champ for two years and successful six-time defender—fought Galento one June night in 1939 at Yankees Stadium. Although Galento lost in the fourth round to the fast-hitting, technically flawless Louis, Galento was “champion of the world for two seconds,” having knocked Louis down in round three. Monninger traces the rise to fame of Galento and Louis, the despair and hope of the nation during the Great Depression and the impact of big money and the media on sports-as-entertainment. Most compelling throughout, however, is Monninger’s presentation of the gluttonous, fun-loving Galento, who rode his two seconds of glory into a follow-up career as a professional wrestler (fighting everything from bears to, once, an octopus) and, more successfully, as a saloon owner.
Monninger artfully revives “Two Ton Tony.” You’ll never be able to say you never hoid uh da bum.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2006
ISBN: 1-58642-115-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Steerforth
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 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
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
© Copyright 2024 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.
