Phelps provides useful perspective on 18th-century mores that made spies like Hale initially reviled by both sides, but his...
A new look at the Connecticut preacher’s son who became an icon of patriotic sacrifice.
True-crime specialist Phelps (I’ll Be Watching You, 2008, etc.) delves deeply into the comportment and character of Nathan Hale (1755–76). Covering his studies at Yale and his fulfilling early career as a schoolmaster in the bustling port town of New London, the author shows an amiable, intelligent, athletic and well-educated young gentleman. Hale’s dedication to his Christian faith was soon to be matched by his passion for the cause of his “injured, bleeding country” in the throes of rebellion against its colonial masters. But he also had moments of boredom and self-questioning, relieved by any number of romantic dalliances or an occasional bout of serious boozing with former Yale classmates and other friends. He was swept into military service first in the militia, then became an officer in George Washington’s army, with which he participated in the siege of Boston in 1775. After Washington’s forces withdrew from New York City and the English occupied it, Hale volunteered for a mission behind enemy lines on Long Island to gather information on the British high command’s resources and possible strategies. The rest is history, and Phelps makes no real inroads on the major questions: Why was Hale so easily tricked into revealing his mission to Robert Rogers, a well-known British military man? Where exactly in New York was he hung from a tree after uttering those famous sentiments about having “only one life” to give? (Sentiments that were probably paraphrased for posterity.) Where was his body buried in an unmarked grave? Could Hale have actually started the fire that devastated lower New York? All mysteries still.
Phelps provides useful perspective on 18th-century mores that made spies like Hale initially reviled by both sides, but his narrative could use more depth.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-37641-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
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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