A good read for his fans; a relic from another age for the rest of us.
The adventurous autobiography of one of the world’s most prolific and popular novelists.
South African novelist Smith (The Tiger’s Prey, 2017, etc.) has sold more than 120 million copies of his books, primarily adventure novels charged with family drama. Some of his work has been shadowed by accusations of racism and misogyny, charges the author seems to simultaneously deny and own up to in this otherwise breezy autobiography. In this chronicle of his life’s exploits, he narrates with the swagger of his heroes Hemingway and H. Rider Haggard. The book is replete with tales of hunting, flying, fishing, and near-death experiences like drinking with Lee Marvin, a star of the 1976 adaptation of Shout at the Devil (1968). The narrative is structured thematically with chapters like “This Hero’s Life,” “The High-Flying Life,” and so on, interlaced with anecdotes about his research and writing process. Smith’s depictions of the realities of apartheid-era Africa can be compelling, but his determined machismo sometimes sours the overall account. “I think one of the worst inventions of our century is political correctness,” writes the author. “It has forced a generation of men to keep their masculinity under wraps, made them too timid to admit their true views about the world.” Worse is his cantankerous scorn of the young: “We are spoiling whole generations of people now. You don’t have to work, you can claim benefits; if you want to write obscenities on the walls and go on the soccer field and swear your head off, you’re a hero.” Fans will appreciate the origins and inspirations of his popular characters, and Smith retains a mischievous sense of humor, but it’s a surprisingly unexciting memoir sporadically laced with notions best left behind.
A good read for his fans; a relic from another age for the rest of us.Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4998-6124-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Bonnier Zaffre
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
IN THE NEWS
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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