``I have never before written about someone who differed so sharply from his reputation as Al Capone,'' concludes Bergreen (As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin, 1990, etc.) in this shallow life of Public Enemy No. 1. As Bergreen tells it, Capone was scapegoated for America's failure to abide by Prohibition and was a victim of anti-Italian prejudice. This is far too reductionist. Bootlegging was just one part of Scarface Al's underworld empire, which also included gambling, prostitution, and massive corruption of Chicago's police, politicians, and press; and while there was surely a glut of anti- Italian sentiment, most Italians managed not to be driven by it into a life of crime. To be fair, Bergreen does not deny that Capone was awash in blood, and he has discovered medical files detailing the mobster's cocaine use and syphilis-induced megalomania. He also mentions government files on an older brother who changed his name and became a legendary Prohibition agent, and cites scores of people who testify to Capone's impulsive generosity. Repeated statements about moral complexity, however, explain nothing about why Capone became infamous even in brawling Chicago. Bergreen notes that he conducted more than 300 interviews, but mere quantity is inadequate without standard biographical procedures. For instance, he claims that Capone desperately yearned to forsake racketeering while he sought sanctuary from a murder rap in Lansing, Mich., but the source for this information is cited pseudonymously. Moreover, Bergreen never attempts to prove a Capone confidant's claim that Eliot Ness was on the take (in fact, he portrays Ness as a skirt-chasing, alcoholic publicity hound). Even in an age of revisionism that has raised the stock of the likes of Jimmy Hoffa, Bergreen's insistence on a kinder, gentler Scarface is breathtaking chutzpah—the kind the mobster might have employed. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection; author tour)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-74456-9
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
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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