Part travel diary, part spiritual education, liberally sprinkled with hedonistic pursuits.
Olden recalls his time as a young man in tumultuous China.
Olden’s memoir opens with his decision to leave behind everything he’d known and join his friend Alex in Shanghai. The year was 1999, and China was buzzing with possibility. The country’s vast economic expansion was underway in earnest, and opportunities were everywhere. Olden left his former life after his fiancee cheated on him with a close friend, and then he chose not to pursue serious relationships with women. So, instead of romance, the story is full of camaraderie between men—particularly after Olden finds a steady, entertaining group of friends—and fleeting interactions with women. He encountered female scam artists, sex workers and business owners (not to mention the extensive collection of digital women he kept on his computer). As Olden went from job to job, scraping by when one position ended and rent was due, he started to gain confidence in himself. A pivotal moment was his meeting Joseph, a former Mormon missionary living in Shanghai who radiated calm from the moment he met Olden. In their first encounter, Joseph gave him a book—Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist—which Olden accepted with some trepidation. As it happened, Joseph’s book allowed Olden to relax and go with the flow of life. This strategy ended up working well for him on the employment front, as he found himself with opportunity after opportunity even when things seemed desperate. Romance wasn’t in the cards for Olden, though he does describe sometimes-amusing, usually vulgar encounters with women from bars and clubs. The memoir traces Olden’s evolution: Readers see him through the process of moving to a foreign country and becoming more of a stable, optimistic adult. The cast, mostly friends and short-term lovers, is vividly portrayed, and Olden writes everyday speech particularly well, helping readers more fully experience his daily life in Shanghai. However, as an effect of culture shock, some dialogue is intentionally unclear, since Olden had difficulty understanding Shanghai’s residents even when they spoke English. From the food carts outside Olden’s first office to descriptions of nightlife, there is more than enough local color to satisfy readers interested in armchair travel. While Olden’s memoir doesn’t have a plot in the traditional sense, his own development touches on milestones and themes that progress throughout the work, giving readers plenty to think about.
Part travel diary, part spiritual education, liberally sprinkled with hedonistic pursuits.Pub Date: June 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1497505636
Page Count: 376
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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