A gung-ho yarn of modern war that also clarifies the resilience of Afghanistan’s tribal culture.
Pulpy retelling of a notable Afghan war flash point from the perspective of the Pashtun tribesman who saved wounded Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell.
Prolific author Robinson (Honor and Betrayal: The Untold Story of the Navy SEALs Who Captured the "Butcher of Fallujah"—and the Shameful Ordeal They Later Endured, 2013, etc.) previously co-authored Lone Survivor, made into a 2013 film, about Luttrell’s ordeal. Here, the author re-examines the fierce firefight against numerous Taliban fighters that claimed both Luttrell’s three peers and a helicopter-borne rescue mission via the story of Mohammed Gulab, based on interviews conducted via interpreter. Though the overall narrative is familiar, Robinson develops it via a lesser-known facet of the war: the fiercely independent mountain tribes that tried to avoid both Taliban and American entanglements. Gulab notes at the outset, “God spoke to me that day and said I must give protection to this man...under the Pashtunwali rules that guide our lives.” This decision surprised his village and Luttrell and infuriated the Taliban, resulting in a tense series of standoffs before a covert, high-tech rescue mission arrived for Luttrell and his unlikely protector. Remarkably, it took years for Luttrell, who credits the tribesman with saving his life, to find Gulab again. Robinson tries to rectify that by telling his story, emphasizing Gulab’s bravery, the respect accorded to his family by his tribe, and his credentials as a genuine warrior who started as a child soldier fighting the Soviet occupation—not to mention the fact that Gulab “liked this tall Special Forces operator a great deal more than he cared for the rough, sneering gangsters” of the Taliban. Robinson sincerely discusses the inscrutable, honor-bound, ancient Pashtun society and warrior code that guided Gulab. However, the book suffers from repetitive observation and a sometimes excessively macho tone (“It was as if everyone was involved in this rescue, if not physically, then with their fighting hearts and steel-rimmed willpower”).
A gung-ho yarn of modern war that also clarifies the resilience of Afghanistan’s tribal culture.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1798-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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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