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FIDEL AND CHE

Name: FIDEL AND CHE
Author: Simon Reid-Henry
ISBN: 978-0-8027-1573-9

A REVOLUTIONARY FRIENDSHIP

by Simon Reid-Henry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 18, 2009

Illuminates unexplored corners in the revolutionary history of Latin America and gives a sympathetic but not uncritical view...

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“I dream of Che a lot. I dream he is alive, in his uniform, I dream that we talk.” So said Fidel Castro, long after his friend and comrade Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s death.

As Reid-Henry (History/Queen Mary, Univ. of London) demonstrates at many points in his debut, Castro and Guevara completed each other. Ironically, both came from wealthy and influential families, the very people they would mount revolutions against. The author notes that Guevara’s father was the grandson of one of the wealthiest men in South America, his mother the descendant of a Spanish viceroy, and Castro’s landlord family was conspicuous in its affluence. Initially, Guevara was the more skilled theoretician, well versed in Marxist theory; Castro took time catching up. In the early days of their friendship, though, dating to the mid-’50s, Castro concocted a kind of revolutionary nationalism that “gave Che the voice, finally, to articulate his own vision of resisting American imperialism.” When Guevara left Cuba to export the revolution in battles around the world, accumulating expertise in guerrilla warfare, he lost his place in the Fidelista hierarchy. This fact has suggested to some historians that Guevara lost favor, but Reid-Henry writes that “a revolutionary partnership is different from most other political double acts,” and shifts in role were not unexpected. Of course, Guevara’s adventures abroad did not turn out well. He was badly defeated in Africa and eventually rooted out and killed in Bolivia, providing that ghost of Castro’s dreams. Reid-Henry writes with circumstantial detail, yielding, among other things, a touching inventory of the things Guevara carried: a photograph of his wife, copies of Marx and Lenin and an inhaler for asthma.

Illuminates unexplored corners in the revolutionary history of Latin America and gives a sympathetic but not uncritical view of a genuine friendship.

Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-8027-1573-9

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Walker

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2009

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HISTORICAL & MILITARY | 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.