A blow-by-blow account of legal actions taken against the Exxon Corporation in the wake of the March 23, 1989, Exxon Valdez disaster. Reading this book by attorney/novelist Lebedoff (Ward Number Six, 1972) is much like watching one of the new-realism courtroom dramas on network TV: The pace is hectic; the actors are strapping he-men or (as Lebedoff writes of a young prosecutor) doubles for Daryl Hannah, their characters transparently evil or good; and the script is packed with enough technical detail to satisfy the demand for verisimilitude. Thus, you will learn how lawyers bill clients for their time, how legal reputations are made and broken, and even how toxicologists determine hours after the fact how much alcohol a person may have consumed before, say, an arrest for reckless driving. The last issue was key to the notorious Valdez case, in which Captain Joseph Hazelwood, not long after consuming numerous shots of distilled spirits, left the bridge of the oil tanker he commanded, ordering a subordinate to steer it past a dangerous reef off the Alaska coast. The untested subordinate steered the massive ship onto the rocks; millions of gallons of oil spilled into the waters, ruining ecosystems and fisheries. Lebedoff's hero, plaintiff's attorney Brian Boru O'Neill, instantly leaps into action, arguing that Exxon knew Hazelwood was an alcoholic and that the company itself was therefore responsible for the huge environmental disaster. Through twists and turns of argument, which take up most of the book, O'Neill comes to convince a dozen jurors of the justice of his cause—and to extract a $5 billion settlement against the petroleum giant. Why that sum, the largest ever awarded in a class-action suit? Lebedoff explains the calculus down to the last cent, which should make this book of particular interest to budding attorneys. Lebedoff's narrative is far more satisfying than any John Grisham concoction, and it affords an illuminating look at the legal system today.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-83706-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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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