Despite some unanswered questions, a copiously researched history and a page-turning read. Fong See, the author's Chinese great-grandfather, came to the US as a teenager in 1871. Lisa See's first book takes us through his marriage to a white woman, Letticie Pruett; decades as a Californian entrepreneur (initially selling underwear to prostitutes, later becoming a renowned dealer of rare Chinese antiques); subsequent marriages to much younger Chinese women; 12 children; and numerous trips back to China. The family personalities come alive in See's historythe Prohibition-era alcoholics, the lonely white women who married See men, Letticie's refusal to be a traditionally obedient Chinese wife (though in many ways she identified with Chinese people, once explaining to a white visitor why ``we'' do not like to be called ``Chinamen''), and Fong See's Eurasian sons, whose ``exotic'' looks helped them become dashing Los Angeles playboys. See also provides admirable historical context, always taking stock of political developments in both the US and China and explaining how they might have affected her family. Using interviews, government records, newspaper clippings, and sales slips, among other documents, See has constructed an absorbing multigenerational family saga. The narrative is marred only by a tendency to push the boundaries of fictionalization. All biographers have to do some guesswork, but See at times frustrates by not telling us how much of her account is speculation. For instance, in the chapter on actress Anna May Wong, dubiously titled ``Anna May Speaks (From the Grave),'' it is clear that See has made up Wong's words, but her sourcing doesn't reveal how much she knows about the real Anna May's thoughts and feelings. Fact/fiction ambiguities aside, an invaluable document of immigrant experience that raises complex questions about identity in American culture. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-11997-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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