A difficult but often captivating look at the legacy of abuse.
Neely’s debut memoir explores his traumatic childhood and its impact on his spiritual life as an adult.
The author writes that he was the victim of daily, systematic violence between the ages of 4 and 18. At the hands of his 6-foot, 220-pound father, he says, he would suffer innumerable blows, insults, and other psychological abuse. By middle school, he’d come to recognize that “Dinnertime was the most dangerous time of the day” and that it could explode at any minute into violence. Neely alternates between memories of brutal childhood incidents in Pittsburgh in the late 1950s and early ’60s and moments from his aimless, troubled adulthood. After escaping the torment of his home life, he drifted around the country, joined the U.S. Marines in 1974, and later worked odd jobs, struggled with alcohol, and sometimes found himself homeless or in psychiatric institutes; he notes that he may have undiagnosed mental illnesses in addition to a confirmed dissociative disorder. With the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, Neely came to see himself as a detective trying to solve the mystery of his spiritual life, specifically examining “a sacred unknown” that he says has guided him through his turbulent upbringing and the dark depths of addiction. Throughout, he maintains that his father was a pure incarnation of evil, and as he calmly leads readers through his horrifying memories, he convincingly portrays that parent as a monster. Interjections from the author’s current perspective, however, are often bogged down by overly vague spirituality; for example, there are many repetitive, opaque references to “inner truth” and “deeper realms of thought.” When Neely narrates specific moments from his adulthood, though, he taps into some truly compelling and complex reflections, as when he tells of his identification with gay AA-meeting attendees’ stories of abuse, which he calls “inspirational in as profound a way as I thought possible.” His short stories about other abuse survivors he’s known close out his unusual and powerful work.
A difficult but often captivating look at the legacy of abuse.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-977217-13-4
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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