A spicy blend of humor, irony, wit, facts, fable, and heart.
The creator of the Mobituaries podcast fleshes out that material and also includes a wealth of supplementary essays and other new information.
Writing with Greenberg (English/Montclair State Univ.; The Cambridge Introduction to Satire, 2019, etc.), CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Rocca (All the Presidents’ Pets, 2004) displays his eclectic interests, ranging from Lord Byron, who makes two separate appearances, to the New Jersey Turnpike service areas. Most major sections feature a “mobituary,” which is a lament, sometimes serious, sometimes ironic, sometimes amusing, for someone or something no longer with us. Among these are Thomas Paine, the original Siamese twins, medieval medical practices, Prussia (“always coming up in the context of wanton militarism, which made me think…I’m pretty sure it must be German”), the idea of homosexuality as a mental illness, Billy Carter, Farrah Fawcett, and myriads more. Following most of the mobituaries is a section dealing with cases similar to the one(s) he has just discussed. His section on people confused for each other shows his playful sense of humor—e.g., he includes Joan of Arc and actress Joan Van Ark. As his lengthy Works Consulted testifies, Rocca has done his homework: His sources include not only biographies and histories, but also interviews (where possible) with the people involved. Occasionally, a small error intrudes—Mary Godwin was not yet Mary Shelley when she began work on Frankenstein—but the research is generally sound throughout. Though much of the tributes are funny and wry, others are quite moving (Sammy Davis Jr., a “supernova talent”). Rocca also reminds us of some long-forgotten figures—comedian Vaughn Meader, for example, who rocketed to fame with his John F. Kennedy impersonations and then plummeted after JFK’s death. Political attitudes are sometimes patent, sometimes not.
A spicy blend of humor, irony, wit, facts, fable, and heart.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-50-119762-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
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
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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