The Pulitzer-prize-winning author (Fire in the Lake) turns a penetrating gaze on four recently evolved "communities" which, she contends, exemplify America's unique penchant for abandoning the culture of the mainstream to set up diverse, self-contained societies. The first of these is "The Castro," a San Francisco neighborhood of young, primarily male homosexuals who once believed that they were at the forefront of the Sexual Revolution. In recent years, AIDS has decimated their numbers and virtually destroyed their political and social activism. Like the Castro, the retirement community of Sun City, Florida, is "something new under the sun." History has never recorded an overtly gay male community with its own tribal rituals and political organizations, nor have towns restricted entirely to older people existed prior to the mid-20th century. On the other hand, Reverend Jerry Falwell's Liberty Baptist Church of Lynchburg, Va., and his vociferous Moral Majority are neither unique nor particularly new. Fitzgerald documents their roots in the revivalist upswing of the 1820's and the later "born-again' Christian movement. Falwell's constituency is, however, a community apart from the mainstream in that it adheres to a way of life in which moral values, political judgments and day-to-day decisions are dictated from the pulpit—electronic or actual. The most bizarre community Fitzgerald scrutinizes is the Oregon town called Razneeshpuram, which attracted numerous well-heeled professionals devoted to joyous consciousness-raising and to the establishment of a unique center for worldwide spiritual enlightenment. Almost from its beginnings, the commune alienated its neighbors and, eventually, all of Oregon. It self-destructed in a series of lawsuits and government fraud citations. In analyzing these societies, Fitzgerald supplies a wealth of information on the economic, cultural, spiritual and political forces that brought them about. She virtually immerses herself into each and hobnobs with the people involved in them and with their leaders—except for the guru, Rajneesh, who had taken a vow of silence. The end result is reportage of imposing depth and breadth. Her insights are fascinating, sometimes amusing, often troubling and always stimulating.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0330298453
Page Count: 414
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986
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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