An entertaining biography that circles the theater and taps into an important cultural movement.
Reid’s biographical debut ventures into the beating heart of the Harlem Renaissance through the life of his grandfather Leonard Harper.
Reid scoured historical archives to write this full account of Harper as a theater performer, choreographer, director and producer. Born the son of a poor singer in Birmingham, Ala., Harper performed on the street for pennies as a child. He became a talented performer, and after his father died, he studied soft-shoe in an effort to provide for his family. Reid writes of his grandfather at age 10: He “was now a first-class dancer who could tap rings around most of the adults and veteran masters. In other words, young Harper be boggity-boggity.” Reid continues with similarly charming turns of phrase as he shares the details of Harper’s exploits. Young Harper traveled with vaudeville shows until he found his way to New York, where he went solo at 16. By his early 20s, he found himself at the center of the Harlem Renaissance, and he worked with such legends as Duke Ellington, Florence Mills, Thomas “Fats” Waller and Louis Armstrong. Reid provides a straightforward account of the era’s racial tensions, with white producers often swindling Harper and his fellow African-American theater professionals out of the rights to their works. However, Harper was resourceful enough to successfully stage dozens of shows. Reid chronicles his barrier-breaking achievements, including his 1929 debut of Hot Chocolates, an African-American production that received great acclaim on Broadway. Though the book is full of praise for Harper, Reid also recounts his grandfather’s extramarital affairs and some of the more colorful stories of gangsters and burlesque dancers in the Harlem nightclub scene. While an unfortunate number of grammatical errors and clumsy run-on sentences distract from Reid’s careful research, dedicated theater and history buffs will happily brave the copy editing morass to access the wealth of information Reid has unearthed.
An entertaining biography that circles the theater and taps into an important cultural movement.Pub Date: June 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615678283
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Dr. Grant Harper Reid
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2013
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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