A sad tale drawn out and viewed through rose-colored glasses.
An initially inspired juxtaposition of the lives of the two Spanish sister queens grows saccharine in the hands of British historical researcher Fox (Jane Boleyn, 2007).
The daughters of Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon were positioned at a very young age to marry the most illustrious monarchs of Europe and inherit enormous power in their own right. Yet both were outmaneuvered by the men around them—father, husbands, son—and both eventually squandered and lost their power, dying in shame and isolation. Fox fashions a sympathetic, storybook narrative of the two sisters, daughters of strong monarchs, especially their mother, who spearheaded the Reconquista of 1492. The girls were educated in Latin and married off in their mid-teens, Juana to Philip of Burgundy, and Katherine to Arthur, Henry VII of England’s eldest son. Fate intervened swiftly and changed the course of history: A series of deaths of her older siblings left Juana in the position of inheriting her parents’ kingdom, while her new husband began systematically to rob her of her authority, casting doubt about her sanity; in England, Arthur’s death left Katherine vulnerable until finally she was wedded by his brother Henry VIII and made queen—temporarily. Juana, for her part, despite her sovereignty and the many children she would bear her husband, was essentially disinherited from and then imprisoned first by her father, Ferdinand, then her own son, Carlos V, for the remaining 46 years of her life. Was she truly mad or deliberately enfeebled in the power struggle? Her sister Katherine, more politically astute, had acted as Henry VIII’s equal, until her inability to provide a male heir prompted him to divorce her and she was forced to acquiesce. Fox takes the side of the ill-fated sisters, but she does not offer any new light through the murky historical record.
A sad tale drawn out and viewed through rose-colored glasses.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-345-51604-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2011
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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