A melancholy but gemlike memoir, elegantly written and rich in hard experience.
The acclaimed Irish actor recalls his path to success and the well-cloaked turmoil he faced along the way.
It’d go too far to say that Byrne (b. 1950), star of The Usual Suspects and In Treatment, is as fine a writer as his countrymen James Joyce and Seamus Heaney. However, he writes with much more depth than the typical celebrity memoirist, accessing some of Heaney’s earthiness and Joyce’s grasp of how Catholic guilt can shape an artist. Growing up in Dublin, he aspired at first to be a priest, seduced by images of “young lads with dodgy haircuts, beatific smiles gazing heavenward to answer the call to the priesthood.” But a priest’s sexual assault soured him on the church, and he stumbled through a variety of menial jobs, including a stint as “a toilet attendant at a major Dublin hotel.” There’s no cheerful tone of dues-paying here: Pride isn’t in Byrne’s nature (he saw it drown a childhood friend who died bragging he could hold his breath). The author grew up with a schizophrenic sister who died young, developed a slow-growing alcoholism, and feared abject failure. The sudden success of The Usual Suspects left him with “such tumult in my mind I was afraid I would fall down and be found weeping in the street.” Despite the darkness, Byrne also possesses a winning dry humor that reads as authentically humble: his mother finding ways to cut him down to size in public by sharing embarrassing childhood stories, the time he had to audition for Hamlet using a motorcycle helmet for Yorick’s skull. There’s little in the way of celebrity dishing, but the author shares a boozy conversation with Sir Richard Burton, who cautioned him that fame is “a sweet poison you drink of first in eager gulps. Then you come to loathe it.” Byrne is an impressive chronicler of both his eager gulping and his loathing.
A melancholy but gemlike memoir, elegantly written and rich in hard experience.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8021-5712-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
A fully captivating memoir rich with insights on reading, writing, and life itself.
The acclaimed author muses on personal events and reading experiences that have uniquely shaped his writing and outlook on life.
With his inimitable wit and candor, Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, crafts an exceptionally companionable memoir sure to delight and perhaps even challenge both existing fans and readers new to his work. The author vividly recounts a diverse array of experiences, from seemingly random occurrences to deeply personal moments—e.g., a troubling incident of childhood sexual assault at a museum and a succession of debilitating seizures in his youth. He constructs a subtly, even slyly instructive manual on living an unapologetic, fruitful existence. Interwoven with Handler’s memories are considerations of some of the writers who have influenced his work, such as Nabokov, Baudelaire, Elizabeth Bishop, and Roald Dahl. These are equally matched by pop-culture influences such as the films Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (“a bad movie”) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (“a famously terrible movie”). In trying to explain how inspiration arrives, the author serves up a uniquely eccentric template: “Little bits from all over the place, mostly literature—scurry into my mind and I scurry after them. They are not original ideas—not because they are not original, although of course they aren’t; it’s because they’re not ideas. Not yet. In the beginning they are just things.” Finally, Handler deftly confronts recent literary issues, specifically censorship and a gnawing tendency to admonish “problematic” authors. His keen insights cut through the controversies, and he delivers a blunt summation: “Books are like people in this way. And if you find yourself feeling that the book is problematic, all that means is that you have a problem with it, and that’s easily solved. Leave the book behind…and go home.”
A fully captivating memoir rich with insights on reading, writing, and life itself.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781324090601
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
A satisfyingly heartfelt tribute to a thoroughly remarkable man.
Investigative reporter Franklin recounts the life of the free-spirited millionaire entrepreneur who used his fabulous wealth in the fight to save nature.
One constant in the epic life of North Face founder Doug Tompkins (1943-2015) was his enduring love of the outdoors. The son of a successful antiques dealer, he grew up in the countryside of Millbrook, New York (Timothy Leary was a neighbor), where he cultivated his love of the natural world. His contrarian ways eventually led to his expulsion from high school just weeks before graduation. Tompkins headed West, where he baled hay in Montana, raced Olympic skiers in the Rockies, and took up rock climbing in California. He also “hitchhiked by airplane throughout South America.” Tompkins ended up in San Francisco, where, by the mid-1960s, the skiing and climbing supplies business he started with the help of Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard suddenly began to boom. He was a charismatic businessman, and every one of his ventures after that—from his wife’s Plain Jane dress company to his own Esprit clothing brand—was successful. But his Midas touch never changed his passion for travel and adventure—e.g., flying his Cessna, sometimes with his family, but often, to the detriment of his marriage, solo. In the early 1990s, Tompkins bought property in southern Chile and fell in love with its pristine beauty. His outrage over the resource extraction–based nature of the Chilean government’s policies fueled his desire to protect the land. In the years that followed, he became an outspoken, sometimes reviled conservationist dedicated to using his fortune to transform thousands of acres of Patagonia into national parks. The great strengths of this timely, well-researched book lie not just in the author’s detailed characterization of Tompkins’ complex personality, but also in the celebration of his singularly dynamic crusade to save the environment.
A satisfyingly heartfelt tribute to a thoroughly remarkable man.Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-296412-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
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