A memoir begging for an editor.
An epic autobiography that’s part chronicle of American life gone-by and part diatribe against controlling men.
Caless begins her diary-style memoir with an account of life on a poultry farm during the Depression. She recalls a secure childhood with enough to eat and, eventually, modern conveniences–oil lamps give way to electric lights, a radio and, at long last, a refrigerator for her mother. All is not well on her homestead, however–her father molests and exposes himself to her, and her brother physically abuses her. Her parents spoil her brother but give her often-grueling jobs, even leaving her alone working their roadside stand at night. By the time she was 18, she’s had enough, and takes a bus to her boyfriend’s home in New Jersey. She’s out of the familial frying pan, but soon becomes infuriated by her new husband’s stingy and cruel ways. After he returns from World War II, she leaves him and her young son and aimlessly heads off to make a new life. For decades, she works at an insurance company and meets men at the Jersey Shore–some of whom are married and some aren’t. In her 50s, Caless is visited by a man from her past, but that relationship too has an unhappy ending. His story is woven in between the author’s interminable battles with lawyers and banks, after deaths in her family. Caless can be spunky and sparkling, and some of her stories are engrossing, notably those of reconciling with her son and caring for her dying mother. Her details about the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s are historical treasures. However, those attributes are ruined by her wordy, redundant writing. Caless belabors her points, repeating small establishing details constantly. As the massive page count indicates, she includes far too many long, extraneous stories, even devoting two pages to the story of French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat. The author’s life story has compelling moments, but they are buried under an avalanche of unnecessary recollections.
A memoir begging for an editor.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4257-3185-4, 9
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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