Given the author's previous reticence, fans of both bands will find this memoir revelatory.
A reticent British rock star opens up—a little.
The transformation of Joy Division, an influential cult band, into New Order, a phenomenally popular institution, is one of the most intriguing success stories in all of rock. With the 1980 suicide of frontman Ian Curtis, Joy Division had appeared to be over. Yet the remaining three members stayed together and changed their name and musical direction. Since then, they sustained a level of accomplishment and fan loyalty that transcends generations and that is beyond the expectations of its members. No one is better positioned to tell this story than Sumner, the guitarist who shifted sideways into Curtis’ role as singer and who became the primary motivator in the shift into the electronic dance music that has made New Order a popular mainstay. Yet Sumner has never attracted the cult of personality that Curtis did, and he has been reluctant to reveal much of himself, even after his boyhood friend and longtime band mate Peter Hook left the group, charging Sumner with taking too much control and the other musicians with simply following the leader’s orders. “I’ve gone into great detail here in order to set the record straight,” writes Sumner, though Hook has a different story (see his 2013 book Unknown Pleasures), as even Sumner’s account finds him taking more responsibility for the musical creation and direction, and the other members of New Order rarely seem more than bit players. The author’s family life as an adult receives even less mention, except for an occasional reference to his children. But he’s particularly good on his own Dickensian childhood, raised by parents who suffered from severe health issues. As for the tonal shift in New Order, he writes, “our music had become so incredibly dark and cold, we really couldn’t get any darker or colder.” Thus the band that had prided itself on its homegrown musical direction was increasingly in the thrall of club beats.
Given the author's previous reticence, fans of both bands will find this memoir revelatory.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-07772-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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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