Botwin (Men Who Can't Be Faithful, 1988, etc.) enters the dialogue on female infidelity previously dominated by Dalma Heyn (The Erotic Silence of the American Wife, 1992). On the basis of 250 letters she solicited as part of an office-affair survey, as well as on ``other case histories,'' Botwin claims that ``we are currently living in a world of tempted women''—one in which 40% of wives cheat (Botwin calls this a conservative estimate, despite the finding in a recent National Opinion Research Center survey that only 13% of marriages face infidelity). Moreover, unlike Heyn—who sees most female infidelity in an upbeat light—Botwin believes that unfaithful wives ricochet from bed to bed in a state of unhappiness and confusion: Her text is larded with quotes from letters by cheating wives who underscore the general theme of angst. According to Botwin, studies show that women have affairs for different reasons than men—among them, marital dissatisfaction and a desire for friendship rather than sex (women who work are particularly susceptible). What's more, women apparently feel much more guilt about extramarital relationships than men do. Still, Botwin identifies an emerging group of younger women who behave more like men in affairs—taking the part of the aggressor and feeling perfectly satisfied with an emotionless roll in the hay. But, in the end, Botwin seems to want most unfaithful wives to assess whether their affairs are the ``real thing'' and to contemplate what's gone wrong in their marriages. The author's concluding chapters focus on post-infidelity marital reconciliations—complete with an earnest affirmation that troubled husbands and wives are urged to repeat. Statistics on infidelity are often contradictory, and Botwin selects only those that prove her points. Moreover, her sampling group simply isn't broad enough to reveal much and her advice has a tinny, arbitrary ring. But someone had to contradict Heyn—it's only too bad that it wasn't a writer of greater depth and sagacity. (First serial to Redbook)
Pub Date: Jan. 25, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11646-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1993
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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