HOW STARBUCKS SAVED MY LIFE: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else
Michael Gates Gill
Gotham Books
Memoir
ISBN: 9781592402861

Have you ever heard the inspirational quote from George Eliot: “You’re never too old to be what you might have been.”? Well, 60-something Michael Gates Gill is the walking embodiment of it. Not too long ago, Gill sat alone with his thoughts in an Upper East Side Starbucks, trying to figure out just where his life went wrong. A few scant years before, he held a top position at one of the best advertising agencies in the world. He then ventured out on his own and started an agency, which ended in financial disaster. His personal life was faring no better. An affair threatened to end his 20-year marriage, and he had been diagnosed with a slow-growing brain tumor with an unknown prognosis.
 
How did Gill get to this place of despair? He had been groomed for glory from the start. Growing up the son of esteemed New Yorker writer Brendan Gill on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, he enjoyed all the obvious advantages. He attended Yale and even was a member of the elite and selective Skull & Bones society. Not exactly the recipe for failure. He was no closer to an answer when he was roused out of his reverie by a question.
 
“Would you like a job?”
 
The strange query was coming from a 28-year-old African-American Starbucks manager named Crystal Thompson. Startled and somewhat taken aback, Gill thinks about the question and then answers, “Yes, I would like a job.” And so begins a beautiful but unlikely friendship, as well as a new path in life for Gill --- one with new friends, new skills and lots of foam.  
 
HOW STARBUCKS SAVED MY LIFE recounts the remarkable reinvention of an aging, downtrodden businessman into an enthusiastic, curious and reinvigorated man. For the first time in his life, his is the minority and has to learn a completely different skill set to help him succeed amongst his co-workers, most of whom are decades younger and have trouble relating to an older white guy from the Upper East Side. Although at times the story can drift into feeling like propaganda for the Starbucks corporation (They give even their part-time employees benefits! They call their employees partners!), the strongest and sweetest aspect of the story to emerge is the unlikely but touching friendship formed between Gill and his manager, Crystal.  
 
It truly is a testament to changing one’s life for the better and finding happiness, friendship and wisdom in unexpected places.

   --- Reviewed by Bronwyn Miller

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