The riveting chronicle of a May/December match that precipitated a bitter struggle for the lion's share of a great American fortune. Margolick (who writes a legal column for The New York Times) has fashioned a wonderfully absorbing narrative whose protagonists will strike most readers as being utterly without redeeming social values. In 1971, he reports, J. Seward Johnson, 76-year-old scion of a Johnson & Johnson founder, took a third wife: Barbara Piasecka, a 34-year-old Polish ÇmigrÇ who had worked as a maid in his household. The couple spent most of the their time traveling, collecting fine art, and building fabulously expensive homes. When Seward died in 1983, he left Piasecka nearly all of his $400- million estate. The six children of Seward's two prior marriages (whose dysfunctional, trust-supported lifestyles made the term ``idle rich'' seem like a benediction) contested the will, and Piasecka, before collecting her legacy in an out-of-court settlement in 1986, faced charges ranging from spousal abuse to undue influence. By Margolick's evenhanded account, the legal brawl that ensued ranked among the costliest and ugliest proceedings in the history of US jurisprudence. The clash, which pitted the cream of New York's white-shoe law firms against one another, elicited sensational testimony that succeeded in demonizing Piasecka in tabloid headlines and in tarnishing the reputations of the putatively disinherited, whose briefs conveniently neglected to disclose that their father had made them independently wealthy years earlier. Here, Margolick keeps coherent track of a large cast of attorneys, ligitants, and supporting players, assessing their strengths and weakneses in graceful, often wickedly witty, style. He also has a flair for explaining fine legal points without breaking his narrative's momentum. While there may be a moral to Margolick's dazzling, alchemic reporting on the carryings-on of seemingly repellent carriage-trade characters, it doesn't prevent him from keeping the pot bubbling at a merry pace. (Thirty-two pages of b&w photos—not seen.)
Pub Date: March 19, 1993
ISBN: 0-688-06425-6
Page Count: 600
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 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
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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