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FIERCE PATRIOT

THE TANGLED LIVES OF WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN

Although O’Connell excuses Sherman’s excesses—he was the man we wanted, after all—he does show us his humanity with...

An admiring triptych of the Civil War hero—or villain, depending on your loyalties—popular cultural figure and family man.

Military history scholar O’Connell (The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic, 2010) does not discover a lot about William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) that he doesn’t like. He divides his text into three major sections. The first, and by far the longest, begins with the arrival of the 16-year-old Sherman at West Point in 1836 (“he was beginning a process that would induct him into a warrior elite, forging bonds that would last a lifetime”) and follows him to the end of the Civil War. In the second section, O’Connell focuses on Sherman’s relationships with his men and on his soldiering. We hear (as we do in the first section) about his men’s restraint during the March to the Sea through Georgia and the Carolinas. Sure, they burned houses and scavenged food and supplies, but they didn’t rape or murder anyone. The final section of the triptych chronicles Sherman’s family life: the early death of his father; his foster family (the politically powerful Ewings); his marriage to his foster sister, Ellen; his children (one son became a priest, a decision that angered Sherman); and his lovers (among them, sculptor Vinnie Ream). The author shows us a garrulous Sherman, a man who had difficulties in his banking career, a highly skilled administrator, a fearless leader, a man who bonded with Ulysses Grant (their relationship cooled when Grant pursued the presidency), and a leader who loved the adulation he enjoyed throughout his post–Civil War days—from his former soldiers and the general public.

Although O’Connell excuses Sherman’s excesses—he was the man we wanted, after all—he does show us his humanity with impressive clarity.

Pub Date: July 1, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-4000-6972-9

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 6, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

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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NIGHT

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. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

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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