Admirable search for the facts and insight that are often swamped in Chavez’s turbulent wake.
Thorough, thoughtful biography of Venezuela’s controversial leftist president.
Born of mixed ancestry in the plains area of Barinas, 54-year-old Chávez is “a tropical version of Zelig…adept at blending in,” conclude the authors, a husband-and-wife team of journalists from Caracas. They give the president credit for tireless work and attention to detail, at least early on, but they also quote Chávez’s former psychiatrist, who believes his formidable charm is often impelled by a narcissistic need to be adored. Marcano and Tyszka seem overwhelmed by the many and various explanations volunteered for the president’s occasionally strange behavior, notions and edicts. It’s easy to understand their problem: People who have gotten close to Chávez tend to be sharply divided between those who admire him to the point of adoration and his committed adversaries. The authors number among their sources several of the latter, including at least one former lover and several military officers who conspired with Chávez in his plot to overthrow the government. Planned for a decade, the attempted coup of February 1992 initially appeared to be a disaster; the administration got to the television station first and thus held on to power. Chávez was the first to surrender, and the government made the mistake of allowing him to address the nation, hoping that his co-conspirators would give themselves up without further bloodshed. That address, the authors note, gave Chávez the opportunity to work his charismatic magic on the Venezuelan people. They remembered when he was released from prison in 1994 and in 1998 elected him to the nation’s top office with 56 percent of the vote. Chávez has since survived an attempted coup, two divorces and the ongoing disapproval of the U.S. government.
Admirable search for the facts and insight that are often swamped in Chavez’s turbulent wake.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-679-45666-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2007
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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