The movie actor with the face of a wooden Viking—and the acting ability generally associated with that substance—has dropped the wheel of his famous schooner long enough to produce an autobiography. When amateur actor turns novice author reason dictates that the same motive force is at work in both jobs— the need for money. Indeed, Hayden is honest about it. Hayden is honest about everything. It is the honesty of the man that saves the book. Technically, the book as autobiography has so much wrong with it in its parts that it offers a reviewer's field day: i.e., interrupted flashbacks; the use of "I", "he", "you" to describe himself; a total self-concentration. However, taken as a whole, it is the interesting story of an interesting man. His description of growing up in the '30's and a boyhood under the wing of a con-man stepfather brings a time and a person to wretched life. His indictment of Hollywood comes as no surprise but is revealing of the Hollywood attitude toward their art—pulchritude is enough. Two years ago, Hayden's flight with his custody torn children made national headlines and won him the acclaim that his acting never did. That incident exposed him as the book does—a determined individualist and a romantic—the 19th century hero chained in 20th century red tape. With the total unselective recall of a man who has had psychiatrists, Hayden has produced a surprising book that will be read.
Pub Date: Oct. 21, 1963
ISBN: 1574090488
Page Count: 454
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1963
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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