Autobiography as gaping grin—nary an honest moment to be glimpsed.
The man they called Knight Rider covers his life in standard greatest-hits format.
Even given the meager expectations aroused by celebrity autobiography—a cheery narrative arc laced with a modicum of self-deprecation and the occasional bit of gossip—this relentlessly cheery account still manages to disappoint. Known in these post-ironic days as the Hoff (the logo from a T-shirt he sells via the “Hoff World” website), Hasselhoff launched his career in 1975 when he landed a role on The Young and the Restless. He caught the eye of NBC’s Brandon Tartikoff, who put him in ’80s touchstone Knight Rider, a block of televisual cheese co-starring a snooty talking car with an oscillating red-light scanner for an eye. Next came Baywatch, at one point the most popular TV show in the world, which cemented the Hoff’s status as a world pop-culture star. Success was confirmed when he headlined cheeseball concerts that pulled in massive crowds of Europeans. While the account of his TV exploits soon bores, his story of playing to fame-dazed East Germans in 1989 offers a moment of surreal magnificence. (His song “Looking for Freedom” became an anthem of the post-Wall era.) Readers can hardly turn a bright and sunny page without seeing the Hoff grasp another great opportunity or a sick child needing a celebrity visit pick-me-up. Oh, he encounters occasional speed bumps like divorces and near-death from alcohol poisoning, but he’s soon off and running again: starring on Broadway in Jekyll and Hyde: The Musical and becoming an even odder icon with his stunningly popular SpongeBob SquarePants cameo. Nothing keeps the Hoff down, it seems.
Autobiography as gaping grin—nary an honest moment to be glimpsed.Pub Date: May 15, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-312-37129-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2007
An intriguing look at an iconoclast’s cultural accomplishments.
Beloved, controversial performer discusses fame and the deeper meanings of his life.
Common, subject of Fox News’ ire following his White House poetry recitation, has long been acclaimed as a thoughtful and deft hip-hop artist. In his memoir—co-authored by Bradley (Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, 2009, etc.)—he suggests great consciousness of the cultural legacy he carries: “Chicago blackness gave me understanding, awareness, street sense, and a rhythm. I learned the way that soulful people move, act, and talk.” He portrays himself as an openhearted, curious kid, trying to understand the tumult of Chicago’s African-American South Side. Obsessed with girls from an early age, he would go to the city’s museums to meet them. At the same time, he was rhyming in private, and he gave up basketball in high school to concentrate on rap, which he saw as similarly competitive. Common writes frankly about his youthful involvement with gang culture, portrayed as an inevitable rite of passage that became increasingly violent: “Crack hit the South Side of Chicago like a balled up fist.” Varied influences—his mother, friends, artistic ambitions—steered him away from it and toward a more “conscious” existence. By 1989, his early demos as Common Sense were drawing industry attention, and he dropped out of college to pursue this calling, over his mother’s objections. Much of what follows is a funny, honest showbiz narrative, moving from hip-hop to film acting. Interestingly, each chapter begins with a “letter” to someone significant in his life: e.g., his mother and father (early chapters discuss their tumultuous relationship), Emmett Till, former girlfriend Erykah Badu and collaborator Kanye West. Additionally, his mother offers occasional italicized counterpoint. As a memoir, the book succeeds based on Common’s candor, intelligence and charm, despite occasional artificial passages and broad platitudes, and he writes powerfully about his connection with President Obama.
An intriguing look at an iconoclast’s cultural accomplishments.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-2587-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.
An exhaustive—and exhausting—chronicle of the champ's boxing career and disastrous life.
Tyson was dealt an unforgiving hand as a child, raised in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in a "horrific, tough and gruesome" environment populated by "loud, aggressive" people who "smelled like raw sewage.” A first-grade dropout with several break-ins under his belt by age 7, his formal education resumed when he was placed in juvenile detention at age 11, but the lesson he learned at home was to do absolutely anything to survive. Two years later, his career path was set when he met legendary boxing trainer Cus D'Amato. However, Tyson’s temperament never changed; if anything, it hardened when he took on the persona of Iron Mike, a merciless and savage fighter who became undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. By his own admission, he was an "arrogant sociopath" in and out of the ring, and he never reconciled his thuggish childhood with his adult self—nor did he try. He still partied with pimps, drug addicts and hustlers, and he was determined to feed all of his vices and fuel several drug addictions at the cost of his freedom (he recounts his well-documented incarcerations), sanity and children. Yet throughout this time, he remained a voracious reader, and he compares himself to Clovis and Charlemagne and references Camus, Sartre, Mao Zedong and Nietzsche's "Overman" in casual conversation. Tyson is a slumdog philosopher whose insatiable appetites have ruined his life many times over. He remains self-loathing and pitiable, and his tone throughout the book is sardonic, exasperated and indignant, his language consistently crude. The book, co-authored by Sloman (co-author: Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss, 2012, etc.), reads like his journal; he updated it after reading the galleys and added "A Postscript to the Epilogue" as well.
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-16128-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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