How his birth mother had struggled with her relationships with men and the impact on Chris. It helped me see the context of how Chris got to where he was. I enjoyed both the movie and the book, but the book gives an in-depth look of the author's childhood, which wasn't covered at all by the movie. Here is the story of a man who breaks his own family's cycle of men abandoning their children, a story that appeals to the very essence of the American Dream. Never giving in to despair, Gardner makes an astonishing transformation from being part of the city's invisible to being a powerful player in its financial district. Motivated by the promise he made to himself as a fatherless child to never abandon his own children, the two spent almost a year moving from shelters, 'HO-tels', and soup-lines. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.

However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. The astounding yet true rags-to-riches saga of a homeless father who raised and cared for his son on the mean streets of San Francisco and went on to become a crown prince of Wall Street.Īt the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine.

Chris the pursuit of happiness