Strangely sad and triumphant—a highly contemplative but all-too-abrupt memoir.
Slate writer Neyfakh explores his complex relationship with an enigmatic underground rapper from Milwaukee who has spent the last decade in near obscurity, endlessly touring and producing a polarizing brand of hybrid hip-hop.
When he was just 15, the author briefly drifted into the otherworldly orbit of a white rapper with the unlikely name of Juiceboxxx. Continually dismissed by many as an inscrutable anomaly skittering somewhere on the outer edges of hip-hop culture, the high-octane artist known for his live performances nevertheless managed to turn the young Neyfakh into a steadfast, although often self-conscious, cheerleader. Fast-forward to New York City more than 10 years later, where Neyfakh—having shelved his own creative aspirations—had another chance to “link up” with Juiceboxxx in a journalistic attempt to figure out what continues to drive him—while also attempting to shed light on his own choices in life. Although these sporadic encounters before another bare-bones Juiceboxxx tour were brief, the themes that the exchanges engendered are broad: when is it time to abandon a dream? Who are you when that dream dies? Does conformity always kill artistic instinct? Nearing "the big 3-0," Neyfakh earnestly ponders these provocative questions and many more without ever hinting that either he or Juiceboxxx is getting any closer to finding the answers. The author's earlier attempts to advance the gospel of Juiceboxxx may have met with limited success, but here he succeeds, painting an intimate portrait of an intriguing and idiosyncratic artist whose inner angst is as sympathetic as it is compelling. The author does his job so well that the chronicle of his time in Juiceboxxx’s off-kilter “Thunder Zone” feels somewhat incomplete and could have benefited from a more developed back story focusing on the misunderstood rapper's earlier days.
Strangely sad and triumphant—a highly contemplative but all-too-abrupt memoir.Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61219-446-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Melville House
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2015
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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