Likable to a fault, an anthem of independence for geeks everywhere.
Geeky girl from the ’burbs enters a life of sin . . . for a little while, at least.
Cody grew up nice just outside Chicago during the 1980s. (Since her equally nice Catholic parents presumably would not have named her after evil incarnate, readers may assume that “Diablo” is her own invention.) Her childhood “was a stainless suburban ideal,” but by 2002, a “mid-twenties crisis weighted [her] gut like a cosmic cheeseburger” as she shuffled papers at a downtown law firm. Within a short space of time, however, this “card-carrying dweeb” got involved in an Internet romance with an equally geeky musician from Minneapolis, moved in with him, got a job in a space-age advertising firm and, on a whim, entered Amateur Night at a seedy downtown strip club. Cody doesn’t depict her seemingly random decision to get up on a stage and bare herself to paunchy men (who were usually lousy tippers) as either the inevitable result of some tortured childhood or a grand experiment in feminine self-empowerment. She simply reveals herself as a gawky young woman who never had a chance for excitement. Cody’s quick, self-deprecating wit proves invaluable in relating the year during which she moved from the low-rent Skyway Lounge to the laughably “upscale” Schiecks and then to the adult toy and entertainment emporium Sex World, which is rendered in off-kilter, David Lynch–ian tones. Although at the beginning and end of her book she strains too hard for the baroque, snarky tone of an overactive alt-weekly (Cody is currently an editor at Minneapolis’s City Pages), for the most part this is an honest and amusing memoir that trades in neither pathos nor down-and-out freakery.
Likable to a fault, an anthem of independence for geeks everywhere.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-592-40182-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Gotham Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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