Hesson ably captures the enchantment and inherent dangers of surfing in this distinctive memoir.
A companion piece to the movie about surfing legend Rick “Frosty” Hesson’s life.
Hesson’s fearless love of water developed early in 1950s San Francisco; he loved the “motion and speed” of the ocean and the fact that “it was alive.” Tempering this exhilaration was life with a mother plagued by chronic digestive maladies and a frustrated, hard-drinking father overburdened with family financial responsibilities. As a teenager, Hesson expressed an interest in surfing, and soon, prefab board at his side, he began a trial-and-error ocean education at the beach and at school swim meets with a dedicated coach. Adulthood brought increased familial responsibilities and varied roadblocks as he flunked out of college, narrowly avoided the draft, processed his mother’s heart-wrenching suicide and rushed into marriage. At 26, “Frosty” (nicknamed for his whitish blond hair) revisited the surf at Hawaii’s Waimea Bay and, eventually, returned to Northern California’s Half Moon Bay, where the nation’s pro surfers often stay in the winter to be close to the notoriously mammoth “Mavericks” wave swells. Hesson enthusiastically describes his experiences riding the “Mavs” and his intensive mentorship with burgeoning surfer Jay Moriarity, a relationship that began when the boy, a quick learner, was 12. This pairing of wise experience with eager novice dominates the final third of the author’s autobiography. After years of Hesson’s mindful tutelage, Moriarity, at 16, fearlessly braved the risky Mavericks and emerged as prime sports-media fodder. Sadly, his time with the boy ended tragically when Moriarity drowned while free diving. Throughout, the author comes across as a decent man with great wisdom and compassion.
Hesson ably captures the enchantment and inherent dangers of surfing in this distinctive memoir.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-939126-00-9
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Zola Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
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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