A master journalistic storyteller tells his family’s own story.
A deeply felt, movingly written account of raising an autistic son.
As a best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, Suskind has earned his renown with deeply reported, big-picture stories of domestic policies (Confidence Men, 2011) and international affairs (The Way of the World, 2008). His latest is more tightly focused and intimate in tone, as it deals with two decades of struggles and triumphs of a family trying to do whatever is best for their younger son, Owen, who has somehow been able to make emotional connections through Disney movies that so many with autism never can. The investigative reporter in Suskind might be a little suspicious of a book that depends so heavily on Disney products, and includes visits with its actors and animators and is published through a Disney imprint, even as he insists that Disney “agreed to exert no influence whatsoever over the content of this book.” It details the experience of having a seemingly normal toddler who “vanished” into what was subsequently diagnosed as autism. Early on, they figure, “[i]t’s just a matter of reaching him, of figuring out what caused this storm to envelop him, so we can clear away the clouds and let the light back in.” Nothing was that simple, of course, as frustration at the inadequacies of educational options and conflicting therapeutic strategies, at expenses that run toward $100,000 per year, set in. Disney proved to be the way in, as Owen deeply identified with the sidekicks and misfits of the videos he watched repeatedly, memorized whole scripts and began drawing; he now wants to become an animator. Owen’s obsession has aided his emotional and intellectual development, as he made friends, graduated from high school and enjoyed his first kiss as much as the next romantic teenager. The Disney effect may be distinctive to this experience, but the family dynamic should resonate with a much wider readership.
A master journalistic storyteller tells his family’s own story.Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-8036-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Kingswell/Disney Book Group
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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