Heinlein (1907-88) was one of the most renowned and influential science-fiction writers of the modern era; his selected correspondence—first with famous magazine editor John W. Campbell, later with his agent, Lurton Blassingame—is here edited by his widow Virginia and loosely organized into categories: Early Days (the Campbell era), Juvenile Novels (a highly successful series), Writing Methods (he wrote at length, then pruned vigorously), Fan Mail (and other distractions), Sales and Rejections, Building (his own house), Travel (worldwide), Adult Novels, and more. Up to the mid 1940's, Heinlein, under his own name and various pseudonyms, was Campbell's main talent; inexplicably, their friendship waned ("just another casualty, probably, of World War II," Virginia notes feebly and unhelpfully), and by 1963 had turned hostile: "offering copy to John Campbell, having it bounced. . .and then have to wade through ten pages of his arrogant insults, explaining to me why my story is no good." Elsewhere, about editor Horace L. Gold, a notorious meddler, Heinlein remarks, "there is hardly a paragraph which he has not 'improved'—and I am fit to be tied." Another editor, Scribner's Alice Dalgliesh (she edited Heinlein's very successful juvenile sf series) knew nothing of sf, construed everything in Freudian terms, and blue-penciled accordingly. One chapter details the protracted, difficult genesis of Heinlein's extraordinary, iconoclastic novel Stranger in a Strange Land; another describes the equally remarkable fallout after the book became popular—in some circles Heinlein was regarded as a guru, in others as a cultist and subversive. Eclectic, provocative, and opinionated, just like Heinlein's fiction, the text assumes a fairly detailed background knowledge, which is fine for the fans. However, for the wider audience the book is certain to attract, it should have been reedited by someone more curious and less personally involved. It desperately needs an index. There are photographs, mostly boring.
Pub Date: Jan. 17, 1989
ISBN: 0345369416
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1989
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.
