Exclusively for true believers. But even then . . .
A shambling account of the Bush family’s ascent to political prominence.
Hoover Institute fellow Peter (Reagan’s War, 2002, etc.) and media-consultant coauthor Rochelle Schweizer promote this as “the untold story of the remarkable rise of America’s most powerful family.” Fortunately, that’s not so; Kevin Phillips does the same work, and vastly better, in American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush (Jan. 2004). The authors portray the latter-day Bushes as a political clan that would do medieval Scotland proud, full of closely guarded secrets, walled off to outsiders, and shy of attracting attention (“the Bushes . . . have a disinterest [sic] in publicity because they consider themselves to be the ‘un-Kennedys’ ”)—very much like most other rich, powerful families, in other words. The authors trade in categorical statements that seldom hold up under scrutiny from one page to the next: “the Bushes by and large don’t believe in love at first sight,” they aver, before going on to describe Poppy and Bar’s, and later Dubya and Laura’s, whirlwind romances, textbook examples of, well, love at first sight. The Schweizers offer one useful thought: that the Bushes represent a model of devolution, or “inverse social climbing,” at work, with each generation becoming less patrician and cultured than its predecessor, a downward spiral from Wall Street to WalMart. Otherwise, this work is remarkably short on ideas, delving mostly into People magazine territory, whether writing of Laura’s bookishness (“she had a massive collection of books . . . and enjoyed thought-provoking literature like Dostoyevski’s Brothers Karamazov”), Dubya’s affability (“His ability to befriend his political opposites carried over from Austin”), or the clan’s making hay in whatever sun happens to be shining (“perhaps what separates them most from other political families is there [sic] sheer ability to adapt”).
Exclusively for true believers. But even then . . .Pub Date: April 6, 2004
ISBN: 0-385-49863-2
Page Count: 450
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2004
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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