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
At the age of twenty, Milwaukee native Chris Gardner, just out of the
Navy, arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine.
Considered a prodigy in scientific research, he surprised everyone and
himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance.
Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious
firm than Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly
challenging circumstances that left him as part of the city's working
homeless and with a toddler son. 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 among shelters, "HO-tels," soup lines, and
even sleeping in the public restroom of a subway station.
Never giving in to despair, Gardner made an astonishing transformation
from being part of the city's invisible poor to being a powerful player
in its financial district.
More than a memoir of Gardner's financial success, this is the story of
a man who breaks his own family's cycle of men abandoning their
children. Mythic, triumphant, and unstintingly honest, The Pursuit of
Happyness conjures heroes like Horatio Alger and Antwone Fisher, and
appeals to the very essence of the American Dream.
