Brown brings to his first work of nonfiction the same no- nonsense style that makes his novels and short stories (Big Bad Love, 1990, etc.) so powerful and intense. This episodic memoir of his life as a firefighter is also a testament to family, courage, and hard work, and Brown isn't afraid to risk being sappy, albeit in a manly way. A self-taught writer, Brown supported himself and his family for 16 years as a fireman in his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi. A veteran of the Marines, he found the same brotherhood in the station house, and also a similar test of muscle, brain, and heart. A firefighter can be ``a prick, a thief, a liar,'' but he can't be a coward. Each fire ``has to be faced and defeated,'' and you never ``forget death and pain, or fear.'' Brown sings the praises of his tools—the beauty of knots, hoses, and sirens. He inventories the back rooms, and re-creates the boredom of waiting as well as the pleasures of cooking for the boys and watching sex and violence on the VCR. But nothing beats the adrenaline rush of a call, whether to a burning building or a car wreck: Both require a reflex-like response, and the joy of saving lives cannot be equalled. Interspersed throughout the rambling narrative are anecdotes from Brown's life: his guilt over killing a mouse; his early joy in hunting and fishing; his love for his family and his squirrel dog. The funny tale of his temporary separation from his wife has all the hard-luck pathos of the author's best short stories. Brown confesses to drinking too much and to being otherwise content with his life. Yet he reluctantly abandoned firefighting to become a full-time writer—and he's done extraordinarily well at it since. A remarkable addition to the literature of work. This may not be the first book by a fireman—but it's one of the best. (First printing of 25,000)
Pub Date: Jan. 28, 1994
ISBN: 1-56512-009-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1993
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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