A mostly entertaining story of an unconventional family and their shared trait of flouting convention across generations.
The story of renowned diplomat, composer, novelist and painter Lord Gerald Berners and his "cultivated, artistic milieu."
In this vivid biography, Zinovieff (The House on Paradise Street, 2012, etc.) examines the lives of Lord Berners, his partner of more than two decades, Robert Heber-Percy (the author’s grandfather and the "Mad Boy" of the title), and her grandmother, Jennifer Fry, a beautiful and witty party girl and the catalytic agent of the story. At Gerald and Robert's parties at Faringdon, their estate, "entertainment, excitement and the pleasure principle" were paramount. However, their social circle of artists and aristocrats was more of a romantic and sexual Gordian knot: Most of the men were bisexual or gay, though several also loved women (some enough to marry them), many of whom were also sexually fluid. This impressively researched saga, which spans both world wars, is an effervescent account of the British upper class in the first half of the 20th century. When Jennifer improbably married the Mad Boy, a "wildly physical, unscholarly young hothead," she upended their lives at Faringdon by introducing a feminine presence—and a child (the author's mother, Victoria)—to their home. Victoria came to reject her English country home and lifestyle. The author was raised in a bohemian environment and recalls her mother’s decision not to teach her children manners "on principle." (This is the washed-out section of an otherwise vibrant tapestry.) In a drastic tonal shift, Zinovieff takes out the knives in describing her dismay about her inheritance—Lord Berners' manor and his chef. Though readers should find her relatable, she comes across as occasionally nonsympathetic; her story becomes tiresome as she recounts her struggle to resolve her modern sensibilities to the pastoral world of Faringdon and a "lost way of life."
A mostly entertaining story of an unconventional family and their shared trait of flouting convention across generations.Pub Date: March 31, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-233894-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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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