Fantastic? Hardly.
Skin-deep treatment of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rise and rise.
Kennedy family biographer Leamer (Sons of Camelot, 2004, etc.) re-creates their most famous in-law as a shallow and aggrandizing man—pretty much like the persona Schwarzenegger has already created for himself. While a boy growing up in Austria, Arnold was overshadowed by a winsome brother, nurtured by a protective mother and beaten by a brutish father. Admittedly not a reader, the youngster trained his body into enormity so he could do one thing: leave Austria and become a star. Schwarzenegger achieved his goal and shrewdly conquered the worlds of bodybuilding and feature films before capitalizing on the opportunity to live out his dream of American civic duty. Leamer halfheartedly dresses this cocky suprahuman in an underdog’s cloak of self-deprecation, shilling anecdotes about Schwarzenegger’s crippling need to be admired. Entertaining if farcical tales about Conan the Barbarian and Terminator soon reach the same editorialized conclusion: that it was Schwarzenegger alone who made these movies successful. Leamer dispenses casual nods to hot topics like Arnold’s steroid use and aggressive womanizing, but each time he’s exonerated with a shrug. Meanwhile, the author’s assurances that his subject is not anti-Semitic, which take Arnold’s crush on a married Jewish woman, and dealings with Jewish associates as enough to disprove prejudice, similarly duck an issue that could have made this an interesting consideration of contemporary immigrant success. Leamer’s refusal to write with a critical eye means that Schwarzenegger’s true self remains unknown. Stories from those who do know him fumble inelegantly across the page without finesse, as do superfluous nuggets concerning political rivals. The author concedes that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a man who cannot be told the truth. It’s a moment of rare candor in a biography that mostly settles for skimming the surface.
Fantastic? Hardly.Pub Date: June 7, 2005
ISBN: 0-312-33338-2
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2005
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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