74 AND STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP

Name: 74 AND STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP
Author: Michael Sarno
ISBN: 978-1463521110

by Michael Sarno ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 11, 2011

A sometimes-amusing, occasionally laugh-out-loud funny look at the life of a man who clearly isn’t down for the count quite...

bookshelf

Less a memoir than a collection of anecdotal tales told with humor and sass by retail-display designer Sarno.

Contrary to the book’s title, the author seems to have been fairly clear about what he wanted to do with his life from a young age. From his birth in 1936 through his childhood in Italian enclaves on Long Island, N.Y., and New Jersey, we follow his growing interest in sports and art. When he tossed aside a full scholarship to Parsons School of Design, it didn’t take him long to find a job in a department-store display department, which led to a long, satisfying career. Along the way we meet Sarno’s two wives and two children, the first of each disappearing as quickly as did Sarno’s father earlier in the book, and dozens of friends, relatives and associates who come and go with such rapidity that few stand out. Maybe Sarno missed his true calling—he clearly fancies himself a comedian—but his telling-rather-than-showing writing style fails to draw in readers. A strong editorial hand could have reined in his stream-of-consciousness style without doing any harm and would definitely have made the book easier to read. To hear Sarno tell it, nearly everything he touched turned to gold…until that last misstep on the six concrete steps that led to his downfall in more ways than one and gave him the time and inclination to turn his hand to storytelling. The author’s life—including his strong relationship with his son, his brushes with the Mob and even his incessant practical jokes—has the makings of an amusing, warm-hearted book. However, though he believes his life is instantly relatable, this is the type of book best shared with relatives and close friends.

A sometimes-amusing, occasionally laugh-out-loud funny look at the life of a man who clearly isn’t down for the count quite yet, despite his injuries.

Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2011

ISBN: 978-1463521110

Page Count: 276

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2012

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

bookshelf

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

bookshelf

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

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

bookshelf

NIGHT

by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

bookshelf

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.

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.