A righteous journalist tours the Jackson freak show.
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Jefferson offers her sensible, outraged two cents on the sad plight of the beleaguered pop star.
A child star and a freak are often one and the same, Jefferson smartly illustrates in this extended essay—note the plight of Tom Thumb, Jackie Coogan and Shirley Temple. Jefferson delves into the early days of Jackson’s career with the Jackson Five, arguing that those performances are evidence of a kind of publicly condoned pedophilia (defined as “sexual desire encouraged in adults for children”). She covers the early Midwest home drama, involving Jehovah’s Witness mother Katherine and the philandering, abusive father Joseph, and she emphasizes the early traitorous dealing with adults that later prompted Jackson to entomb himself in Neverland, perpetually in the company of children. Child stars, Jefferson asserts chillingly, never forget they are performers, and “whatever their triumphs, they are going to make sure we see every one of their scars.” The last chapters are a journalistic report from Jackson’s recent Santa Barbara trial on charges of attempted lewd acts with a child under 14, among other counts. Jefferson gives a look from the sidelines into the motivations of the principal characters, especially the various mothers involved, and offers a scornful consideration of the clamorous media and their collective “portrait of absurdity.” Cool and ironic, she ends with a rather touching summation of a damaged, mentally ill character who “compulsively reimagines the violation of his own innocence.”
A righteous journalist tours the Jackson freak show.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2006
ISBN: 0-375-42326-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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