Although every piece focuses on men, the variation of subjects and the different writing styles combine in a journalism...
Veteran journalist Oney (And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank, 2003, etc.) pulls together 20 magazine features from three decades of his career.
In an insightful introduction, the author explains why all of the pieces, published from 1977 to 2011, focus on “fascinating” men rather than other topics. Oney decided it would be useful for readers to explain how men become strong, resilient, and compassionate in contemporary American society. After all, he writes, “no one taught me how to be a man,” so maybe male readers would end up better informed and able “to create” and “to explore their inner darkness.” Oney divides his profiles into four sections. First comes “Fighters,” which includes profiles of Herschel Walker and his post-football life, the combat death of young Marine Chris Leon, the techniques of professional basketball coach Hubie Brown, Hollywood security consultant and former Israeli warrior Aaron Cohen, and veteran police reporter Jake Jacoby. Section 2 features “Creators,” including novelist Robert Penn Warren, architect John Portman, musician Herb Alpert, TV executive Brandon Tartikoff, and Hollywood gossip columnist Mark Lisanti. In “Actors,” Oney covers Harrison Ford, Dennis Franz, Nick Nolte, Harry Dean Stanton, and Bryan Brown. The final section, “Desperadoes,” focuses on professional baseball star–turned–cocaine addict Bo Belinsky, musician Gregg Allman, political provocateur Andrew Breitbart, interior designer con man Craig Raywood, and novelist Harry Crews. In the afterword, Oney illuminates how researching and writing the features taught him lessons about journalism and about developing confidence to make his way as a man—fighting, creating, acting, and embracing danger. Throughout, the author displays his strong reporting skills and engaging prose.
Although every piece focuses on men, the variation of subjects and the different writing styles combine in a journalism anthology more satisfying than most.Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-88146-618-8
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Mercer Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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