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THE OTHER BARACK

Name: THE OTHER BARACK
Author: Sally H. Jacobs
ISBN: 978-1-58648-793-5

THE BOLD AND RECKLESS LIFE OF PRESIDENT OBAMA'S FATHER

by Sally H. Jacobs ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2011

A thorough study of a subject who is hard to pin down—a welcome, evenhanded addition to the lively literature surrounding...

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A pioneering, full-scale biography of President Obama’s father, a promising but troubled man.

Boston Globe reporter Jacobs puts her investigative skills to work in following the elder Obama’s trail across continents and years. He was the son of a cook who worked for the British colonists of his native Kenya, from a Luo family that was early to convert to Islam; he was also at the forefront of his nation’s push for independence and, at least for a time, favored by the new socialist regime of Jomo Kenyatta. Obama Sr. was, Jacobs writes, “a man of brilliance, one whose probing intellect enabled him to soar above his peers in the scrubby tropical bush in which he was raised.” Yet he failed to live up to his early promise; sent to Harvard to study economics, he did not complete his degree, and on returning to Kenya he was unable to hold down the jobs he was offered, jobs that came with a considerable degree of influence and authority. The problem, it seems, was that Obama Sr. had a great fondness for alcohol; just so, he was a devoted pursuer of women, often married and often divorced, possibly bigamous and seemingly not much concerned with the children he fathered—including the future president who bears his name. Obama was clearly charismatic, just as clearly riddled with flaws; his political enemies put those shortcomings to good use, and Jacobs explores the conspiracy theories surrounding his death in an automobile accident. That curious end seems fitting, in a way, casting an enigmatic shadow over a man who was in life “a baffling mystery to many with whom he had lived and worked, including his disparate tribe of children.”

A thorough study of a subject who is hard to pin down—a welcome, evenhanded addition to the lively literature surrounding President Obama’s genealogy.

Pub Date: July 12, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-58648-793-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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NIGHT

by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

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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.