Although Collins doesn’t provide much new information, the clean, crisp narrative presents the puzzling Poe as a deeply...
The author of investigative books about literary and historical figures returns with a lean, swift life of the puzzling Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), whose life and death are as full of mystery as his famous tales.
Part of the publisher’s Icons series, Collins’ (English/Portland State Univ.; Duel with the Devil: The True Story of How Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr Teamed Up to Take on America's First Sensational Murder Mystery, 2013, etc.) work adheres to the facts of Poe’s life and doesn’t even speculate much about Poe’s puzzling death—what was he doing in Baltimore? Why was he in the degraded condition he was in?—and avoids even commenting on some of the more bizarre conspiracy/murder theories (see John Evangelist Walsh’s Midnight Dreary, 2000). Collins begins with what, until recently, had been a tradition at the Baltimore cemetery where Poe’s remains lie: a midnight visitor on his birthday. Then the author proceeds quickly and chronologically through Poe’s life—the early death of his mother (and his father’s abandonment), his unofficial adoption by the Allans (cranky John Allan, a wealthy man, ignored Poe in his will), his boyhood years in England, his schooling (including the University of Virginia and West Point; he didn’t finish at either place), his early struggles as a writer, his battles with booze, his marriage to his 13-year-old first cousin Virginia Clemm and, of course, the composition of his famous works. Collins identifies some favorites: “Ligeia,”the three tales of ratiocination with detective C. Auguste Dupin (the forefather of Sherlock Holmes), the failed novels (one finished, one not) and “The Raven.” Collins also examines Poe’s quick trigger—he accused the puzzled and popular Longfellow of plagiarism. The author also praises Poe’s late works and spends some time on Poe’s reputation.
Although Collins doesn’t provide much new information, the clean, crisp narrative presents the puzzling Poe as a deeply troubled and toweringly talented artist.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-26187-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amazon/New Harvest
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
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
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