A flawed but honest memoir about looking beyond hate to find some semblance of peace on the other side.
How one woman handled racial prejudice in her family.
Born to a white, Jewish mother and black father, TV and film producer Gad was adopted by a white Jewish family when she was 3. In the eyes of many in her adopted, extended family, she wasn’t white, black, or Jewish, and this was never more evident than with her Great-Aunt Nette, who refused to accept Gad as part of the family. In this somewhat rambling memoir, the author examines her childhood and the awkwardness she felt when people pointed out that she did not look like her mother or father—or that she couldn’t be Jewish because she was mixed-race. Nette was the worst of them all, displaying “a clear hatred” for Gad. Despite sharing some minor similarities with the author, such as craving chocolate cake in times of stress, Nette was constantly aloof or disparaging. The list of slights Gad experienced is long: Nette was happy to give the author’s younger sister her beloved jewelry but gave nothing to Gad; she also flew her sister from Chicago to California for a visit but never sent for Gad. When Nette began to suffer from Alzheimer’s, it was an ironic twist of fate that the only person who could help her was Gad. While the author could have turned her back on her great-aunt, she chose to endure further disdain to help Nette. Though the prose is often lackluster, Gad’s message about resisting hate is solid. “I know far too many people that let the anger…about what it is to live with the constant burn of racism and hate consume them….I choose love…because I will not be an instrument that puts more hate into the world.”
A flawed but honest memoir about looking beyond hate to find some semblance of peace on the other side.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-57284-275-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Bolden/Agate
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
