Heavy on bad-boy behavior and sports, the book should come with a six-pack of cheap beer. A quick read that is not for...
Two veteran raconteurs face off to cover over four decades of family myths and legends.
Co-host of NBC’s Today 9 a.m. hour and MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Willie Geist (American Freak Show: The Completely Fabricated Stories of Our New National Treasures, 2010, etc.) joins his father, columnist and TV journalist Bill Geist (Way Off the Road: Discovering the Peculiar Charms of Small Town America, 2007, etc.) in canonizing both great and not-so-great moments in parenting and coming-of-age. The authors banter back and forth in their discussions of everything from a nonexistent father-son sex talk to Willie’s summer camp to coaching Little League. Then there are the tales of underage drinking, how to cook up a fake ID, the family’s Elvis cult and an uncle’s/brother’s pharmacopeia perfectly timed for special events. As in most families, there is one car handed down through the generations, in this case, a Jeep CJ-7. The authors interleave the chapters with sidebars entitled “Geist Date in History” that highlight small events that bear marking—e.g., the day Willie met Donald Trump. Willie also includes a previously published story about taking his daughter to a Columbia University football game. The Geist family, the authors note, often perform rites of passage late, so this book is a chance “to cover our father-son bases retroactively.” It’s clear most of these stories have been told countless times; they’re practiced and well-paced. However, new material about Bill’s Vietnam tour and his battle with Parkinson’s disease contain further revelations and have not been polished over the family dinner table. A strong father-son relationship shines through.
Heavy on bad-boy behavior and sports, the book should come with a six-pack of cheap beer. A quick read that is not for everyone.Pub Date: May 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4555-4722-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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