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
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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