Although the during-and-after-Milosevic format in each segment grows tiresome, Seirestad’s educated eye sees all that’s...
An intrepid Norwegian journalist follows the varied fortunes of Serbs—ranging from celebrities to refugees—during and after the reign of Slobodan Milosevic.
Seierstad has trod the bloody ground of Afghanistan (The Bookseller of Kabul, 2003) and Iraq (A Hundred and One Days, 2005) and here recounts her experiences in Serbia between 1999 and 2004. She tells the stories of 13 individuals and one family, virtually all of whom share two beliefs: The Serbs committed no war crimes or “ethnic cleansing”; and the United States is the cause of all their troubles. Says a Milosevic protégé: “America is the source of all wickedness in the world.” To Seierstad’s credit, she does not accept these assertions silently; rather, she prompts her sources to elaborate and to justify. Most merely repeat what they’ve seen on government television—or rumors they’ve heard from frustrated friends. Seierstad interviewed people who varied widely on just about every human dimension—income, education, sophistication, political affiliation, celebrity. Among the latter were some media personalities, a novelist (Ana Rodic, whose Roots was a Serbian bestseller) and rock musician Antonio Pusic, who goes by “Rambo Amadeus” and describes his music as “acid-horror-funk.” Seierstad went boating with him and added some tracks to one of his CDs. Among the many charms of the author’s work is that her Serb contacts are all invariably glad to see her, grateful for her attention, eager to tell their stories. (Some even try to find her a husband.) Perhaps the most touching story is that of a family from Kosovo now living in a refugee center in southern Serbia. When the Kosovo Albanians arrived, bent on ethnic vengeance, the family fled, leaving behind virtually all they had—except their photo albums and their hope.
Although the during-and-after-Milosevic format in each segment grows tiresome, Seirestad’s educated eye sees all that’s important, and her compassionate heart beats in tandem with some poorly understood, deeply afflicted people.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2006
ISBN: 0-465-07602-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
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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