A disjointed tale of medical detection and scientific research that begins with personal disaster for six drug addicts and ends with new hope for countless sufferers from Parkinson's disease. In 1982 Dr. Langston, then head of the neurology department at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in California, examined the first of six strangely mute and paralyzed addicts. Investigation eventually revealed that all had injected themselves with synthetic heroin and that a toxin in the drug had destroyed a portion of their brains; they had, in effect, given themselves instant Parkinson's, ordinarily a progressive disease afflicting the elderly. Their bad luck, however, was Langston's good fortune. Finding a substance that could induce Parkinson's was a scientific breakthrough; the ability to induce the disease in laboratory animals created an opportunity to study it and test new forms of treatment. The story, a third-person narrative by Langston (now director of Parkinson's research programs at the California Institute for Medical Research) and Palfreman (a writer and producer of television documentaries), gets sidetracked from time to time by intrusive technical explanations and extraneous details—the scientist appears to be struggling with the writer for control of the material. Nevertheless, there's plenty of drama: police drug busts, critically ill patients, intense professional rivalries, and political infighting. Even the White House became involved when research indicated that fetal tissue obtained from abortions might provide the long-sought cure for Parkinson's. Meanwhile, in 1989, two of Langston's addicts were flown to Sweden for experimental treatment. The results of revolutionary surgery that implanted fetal tissue into their damaged brains were highly promising, and the tale ends with a glimmer of hope. Contains all the elements for a fascinating story, but the telling does not do it justice. (illustrations, not seen).
Pub Date: May 24, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-42465-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1995
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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