Jazz critic and social writer Hentoff recalls his early years and formative influences in this stream-of-consciousness memoir. In his boyhood, the charmingly corrupt Mayor James Michael Curley ruled City Hall, the sermons of Father Coughlin ruled the radio (at least on Sundays), and the neighborhood of Roxbury, where Nat grew up, was already considered a ghetto—for Jews. Today a regular contributor to the Village Voice, Hentoff reveals himself as a rebel from way back, at age 13 organizing his fellow candystore clerks (and winning them a 10¢ wage increase). But life was mainly bounded by the twin "J's" of Jazz and Judaism. The young Hentoff collected records even before he owned a record player, so entranced was he by the new sounds of Duke Ellington and Fats Waller: "There were more different colors in this music than in all the Boston Museum of Fine Arts." The relationship with religion was a more troubled love affair, but Hentoff never failed to thrill at the rabbi's prayer-chant at services or the klezmorim musicians that performed during weddings. The link between the love of the Yiddish bands and the Big Bands is not, he insists, that far-fetched. "So where do you think Benny Goodman came from?," a klezmer clarinetist asks him. When it sticks to memories like that, the book is charming and moving. But as it goes along, Boston Boy shrinks in scope, becomes more of a recital of the increasingly smart-ass author's triumphs—Hentoff receiving the confidences of wise old jazz musicians, Hentoff conning the Fulbright Scholarship office into early acceptance. Especially self-indulgent is a section on a Jewish high-school student in 1984, who endured threats and hate mall because she refused to recite the Hedge of Allegiance. Hentoff has extensively written about the incident ever since; the sole rationale for its inclusion here seems to be his stated credo that "Ever since [college], everyone's free-speech rights have been my business." Such egotism ultimately sours Boston Boy. In the grand scheme of things, Hentoff's life isn't exactly time-capsule material; even so, this jazz buff should learn the difference between memoir-writing and personal horn-blowing.
Pub Date: April 15, 1986
ISBN: 096796752X
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1986
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.
