A thoughtful, rigorous, and comprehensive look at sexual crimes brimming with insights and humanity.
A writer offers an exploration of sexual assault, including the forces that permit and encourage it, paired with a holistic approach to reducing its occurrence.
McDonald (UnHoly Orders, 1996) believes that the time for a serious revision of the way people combat and even think about sexual assault is upon us: “Society is now ready to dialogue.” The regnant strategy, which largely focuses on the problem from the perspective of law enforcement, is simply too limiting—the mere “adjudication of law” has proved simplistically insufficient. Instead, the author proposes a much more proactive plan that emphasizes preventive measures; addresses the mindsets that make victims more vulnerable and that catalyze predators; and identifies the features of societal culture that make sexual assault more likely. In short, this entails a prioritization of “merciful healing” (“Proactive mercy in respect to crime pattern prevention is richer than the donation model of charity. The whole of society is responsible for reducing malfeasance”). McDonald articulates in lucid, accessible prose ways to promote the empowerment of would-be victims that focus not only on defensive safety in the narrow sense, but also the disadvantages that make women vulnerable, including chauvinistic bias, economic insecurity, and an insufficiently robust understanding of consent. The author also looks to the offenders as well, discussing their predictable patterns of behavior, the likelihood they suffered abuse, and the role of pornography in the normalization of sexual violence and objectification. McDonald’s treatment of a sensitive subject is impressively nuanced, and she covers a dizzying array of topics with great concision. The author’s recommendations are deeply humane, seeking not only justice for victims, but also a world less likely to produce predators—who are not born with but largely learn violent tendencies. She also proposes a more realistic interpretation of gender equality that doesn’t entail indiscriminate sameness, thereby ignoring advantages men may have over women: “Privileged dualism denies diversity.” This is an important contribution to a timely discussion that deserves a wide audience.
A thoughtful, rigorous, and comprehensive look at sexual crimes brimming with insights and humanity.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-5255-3722-6
Page Count: 337
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2020
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
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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