Though a well-worn theme, this particular merging of city and country is both sweet and savory.
A former drag queen swaps his pumps for work boots and life on a remote farm.
After retiring his alter ego in favor of an advertising career and a serious relationship, Kilmer-Purcell (Candy Everybody Wants, 2008, etc.) and his partner Brent, the “resident health and wellness expert” for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, became instantly enchanted with Sharon Springs, a charming, upstate New York town they discovered by accident during a yearly apple-picking excursion. Their adoration spawned the purchase of the historic Beekman Mansion, a million-dollar monstrosity built in 1802, replete with seven working fireplaces, a crypt and 60 acres of farmland. As both men were raised conservatively, the joint purchase of this “second home” was extravagant and indulgent, though Kilmer-Purcell admits to seeing his future “as promising as a roll of free drink tickets once was to me.” Aided by John, their trusty “co-farmer,” along with the camaraderie of friendly locals, the couple began raising turkeys, dairy goats, a Holstein bull calf, a vegetable garden and a goat’s-milk soap business, which exploded after a promotion on a Martha Stewart segment. A cavalcade of farming misadventures followed, all recounted in the author’s droll, deadpan delivery. (The countless Martha Stewart references, however, come across as arrogant.) Eventually, the pastoral joys of country life, and Brent’s unexpected layoff, took their toll on the couple’s nearly-ten-year relationship. An apprehensive visit from a New York Times reporter helped leaven the mood, before the pair considered selling the farm as Kilmer-Purcell lamented, “Had this all been one big folly?”
Though a well-worn theme, this particular merging of city and country is both sweet and savory.Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-133698-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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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