Inspiring, if a touch hagiographic.
Imagine Sister Helen Prejean speaking Spanish.
Reporting duo Jordan and Sullivan—Washington Post writers who won the Pulitzer for a series of articles on the Mexican justice system—tell the life story of the extraordinary Mother Antonia, a Catholic sister who lives with and serves the inmates at Tijuana’s La Mesa prison. Mother Antonia is remarkable not only for the constant, countless works of service and mercy she performs, but also because of her background. She grew up well heeled in Beverly Hills and married twice, survived two divorces and reared seven children before moving to the prison. Her strong call to serve the downtrodden began when, unfulfilled by motherhood, her mediocre second marriage and a dull day job, Mother Antonia—then known by her given name, Mary—began collecting clothes and medical supplies that were sent to help the needy in Korea. She excelled in her charity work, and her reputation as an angel of mercy grew. In 1965, a priest acquaintance took her to visit La Mesa. The trip turned into a calling, and Mary, who could not get the suffering Mexican prisoners off her mind or out of her heart, began visiting La Mesa more and more frequently, sometimes spending the night. In 1977, after her second marriage fell apart and her children had grown up, she decided to don a habit and move to the prison. The second half of the story, which chronicles Mother Antonia’s work at La Mesa, drags a little. Admittedly, her good deeds are breathtaking: she convinces Mafia drug-lords to come clean; she gets food, glasses and toilet paper for the prisoners; she helps wrongfully incarcerated men go free. But chapter after chapter of this litany of good works grows tedious—unlike the first half, which culminates in Mary’s move to Tijuana, the second has no change, turning point, tension or climax.
Inspiring, if a touch hagiographic.Pub Date: May 5, 2005
ISBN: 1-59420-056-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2005
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
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
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