An intriguing peek into a piece of Americana that will likely appeal mainly to derby enthusiasts.
A debut memoir offers a decade’s worth of insider stories from a roller derby star.
Early on, Smith says he is writing this book for the many roller derby “fans who love the game and travel four hundred to five hundred miles to attend matches in their area.” Indeed, this is a work for devotees, those familiar with the rules and terminology, not to mention the players, of a sport that seems to have reached its peak in the early 1970s. It is also for his fellow skaters, who should thoroughly enjoy the recollections. Other readers may wish to Google a glossary of the lingo to follow along. Still, the author offers plenty of captivating tidbits for the nonaficionado. Smith has a compelling personal story to tell, and the on-track and off-track antics of the professional men and women who willingly endured all manner of broken body parts to partake in the joy of skating remain quite astounding. The back stories of heavy drinking and fast driving could put today’s bad-boy athletes to shame, although there is a noticeable respect for women among this group. Smith describes a violent combat sport, with fans happy to join in the mayhem. After 1973, the derby became scripted: plays and fights were prearranged, and that’s when Smith and his then-wife, Francine Cochu, a derby star in her own right, decided to retire. The author examines the uniqueness of roller derby: teams comprised a men’s group and a women’s group, and the final outcomes were determined by combining the two scores; players drove from town to town in 16-to-17-day spurts without a break; the team had to set up and tear down its own derby tracks in each town; and the skaters received terrible pay. Smith delivers what is really a series of vignettes, often forsaking chronology for the memory of the moment, so there is considerable jumping back and forth in time. This sometimes results in a tedious repetition of events and personal history that should be summarized in the second or third mention rather than repeated. But his text turns out to be comfortably conversational, best in small doses.
An intriguing peek into a piece of Americana that will likely appeal mainly to derby enthusiasts.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4917-8017-6
Page Count: 244
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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