A veteran sportswriter (Matty, 1993, etc.) goes a bit afield with still another biography of all-star entertainer Will Rogers. He was simply a natural. With his vaunted wit, Rogers (18791935) conquered stage, screen, print, airwaves—just about every available medium of communication, with the possible exception of semaphore. The genial, lariat-twirling philosopher roped in everyone from Flo Ziegfeld to FDR with sly winks and pungent topical observations. Rogers played the quintessential American (that is, himself) to perfection. Using basic pop history, starting with Hernando de Soto, the Trail of Tears, and the Civil War, Robinson quickly sketches Rogers's progenitors, some of whom would now be called Native Americans, and his progress from the Indian Territory that became Oklahoma to world traveler and national icon. We learn that Rogers, though often seasick, was a reckless air passenger (which led, of course, to the ultimate tragedy). There are extensive quotations from his unlettered and remarkably inept, unfunny letters of courtship and a gathering of opinion from fellow actors. Withal, the text too often seems to be an amalgam of random recollections, a few odd facts, and secondary source material. There is little new and revealing about the man that urgently demands another biography after Ben Yagoda's masterful 1993 work. Clearly, Rogers was usually a man of remarkable native intelligence and wit. What caused him, then, to offer words in support of Huey Long, Benito Mussolini, and Father Coughlin? Robinson doesn't enlighten us; the most natural and open of performers remains an enigma as a man. Appended are several pages of Rogers's gags, but no index, filmography, bibliography, or notes. A serviceable account of a famous American, but not a prime example of the biographers' art. (30 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-19-508693-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
