A timely but stubbornly selective autobiography of Detroit's five-time African-American mayor, written with Wheeler (coauthor of Hank Aaron's I Had A Hammer, 1991). The authors tell the parallel stories of a profoundly troubled city—abandoned by the auto industry that had nourished it and becoming for a time the nation's notorious murder capitol—and of the extraordinary man who governed it for 20 years (ill and out-of- favor at age 75, Young chose not to run in the last election). Young grew up in Detroit's Black Bottom neighborhood when it was still a cozy place to live. Tricked out of college because—he says—of his race, he worked at Ford, learned Marxism at the local barbershop, served with the famous Tuskegee Airmen, and immersed himself in left-leaning union activities. He became a local hero after taking on Joe McCarthy's HUAC and, in 1973, was elected mayor when Detroit's racial balance tipped toward African-Americans. In office, Young delivered on many of his promises—most significantly, to divide power through affirmative action where he was empowered to do so, and to tame the police department, whose union newspaper was, he says, still calling blacks ``jungle bunnies'' when he moved into the mayor's waterfront mansion. Here, Young and Wheeler go on to take us through the agonies of grappling with what Young calls ``the damnestdest demographics in America.'' Later on, the former mayor presents a fairly strong case for the imposition of term limits: The man, it seems, was simply overly merged with his city. Since much of the material here on Detroit will be familiar to readers of Ze'ev Chafet's Devil's Night (1990), it's a pity that Young, on his own turf, hasn't told us more about his turbulent relationship with Jesse Jackson, or hasn't been less roguish and elliptical about his personal life. Which is to say that this aptly titled book, while dandy, could have been softer. (Eight pages of b&w photographs)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-670-84551-5
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 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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