Sattouf has also worked as a columnist for the satirical Charlie Hebdo, but the social commentary here is more wistful and...
A child’s-eye view of upheaval in the Arab world and its relations with the West.
The first work by the acclaimed French cartoonist and filmmaker to be published in English is sure to extend his renown. “My name is Riad,” writes Sattouf on the first page. “In 1980, I was two years old and I was perfect.” However, such perfection came at a cost for the blond-haired, bright-eyed, delicately featured protagonist, particularly after his family left his mother’s native France to further his academic father’s vision of “pan-Arabism. He was obsessed with education for the Arabs. He thought that Arab men had to educate themselves to escape from religious dogma.” Yet there was no escape from religious dogma, political repression, or rootless poverty. The author chronicles his father’s spurning of an appointment from Oxford because “they misspelled my name in the letter” for one that moved the family to Libya, where dreams of equality came at a price, since squattership seemed to trump ownership where living quarters were concerned. Though a return to France would have been welcome, the father moved the family to his native Syria, which was not what he remembered or envisioned, where the son found the morning call to prayer to be “the saddest voice in the world.” It appears through the narrator’s innocent eyes that much of the adult world was seriously out of touch with reality, though he felt even more threatened by his peers and relations, who made fun of his “ugly yellow Jewish hair.” Somehow, the narrative is both very funny and very sad, though the fact that this book even exists shows that a boy’s artistic gifts were finally permitted to flourish.
Sattouf has also worked as a columnist for the satirical Charlie Hebdo, but the social commentary here is more wistful and melancholy than sharp-edged. This first volume of a memoir “to be continued” is subtly written and deftly illustrated, with psychological incisiveness and humor.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-344-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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PERSPECTIVES
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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