Pulitzer Prizewinning author Massie, whose 1967 Nicholas and Alexandra received high praise, has used new documents on the assassination of the Romanovs to write a sequel that is almost as much thriller as historical account. Beginning with the assassination in the basement of the house in which the royal family had been imprisoned in Ekaterinburg, Massie traces the early, covert efforts, mainly by geologist Alexander Avdonin, to find the bodies. In 1979, Avdonin and Moscow television producer Geli Ryabov used an account of the execution given them by the son of the executioner to find the grave site and exhumed the bodies. In 1989, news of this discovery set off a scramble among the local authorities, Moscow, and competing groups of forensic analysts in the West to study the remains of the Romanovs. These efforts led to the identification of the bodies of Tsarina Alexandra and three of the four daughters, with disagreement as to whether Marie or Anastasia was the missing daughter. The identity of the tsar himself was complicated by an unusual genetic anomaly that could have been caused by contamination. The results were also contested by ÇmigrÇ groups abroad, who suspected a KGB hoax, and were entangled by disputes as to the missing members of the family. One of the most fascinating parts of Massie's story is his account of the controversy surrounding ``Anna Anderson,'' acknowledged by many of the Romanovs as Anastasia, but proved in recent DNA testing to have been ``an impostor with astonishing physical similarities'' to the dead princess. Finally, Massie deals with the bitter squabble among surviving members of the family about ``who is and is not qualified to claim a nonexistent throne.'' (For more on the assassination, see Mark D. Steinberg and Vladimir M. Khrustalâv, The Fall of the Romanovs, p. 1264.) With memorable sketches of the main participants and a skillful discussion of the scientific evidence, Massie pulls together a sprawling theme and infuses it with quiet drama. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-394-58048-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1995
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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