A quirky and inspiring story.
A successful California restaurateur dishes on his “fall” into success.
In 2014, then-23-year-old Fall took a chance and opened his first bar. His idea was simple: to reinvigorate a staid Los Angeles nightclub scene and transform it into an experience that intermingled “ideas and friendships and art.” The popularity of this bar and others quickly transformed Fall into a “thing,” but he soon realized that his real interest was food and creating unique dining experiences. His limited knowledge of the restaurant world had come through a mother who had managed a Skid Row cafe. Despite countless challenges, the author dove into his work with Nighthawk, a diner named after the 1942 Edward Hopper painting. Nighthawk featured a “live DJ ‘jukebox’ ” and served breakfast and breakfast-themed cocktails like his famous “spiked cereal milk.” Other mixed media–style restaurants followed, and Fall eventually landed in Forbes magazine’s “30 under 30.” Meanwhile, he found himself reckoning with an extreme anxiety that threatened to shut down his creative output. Pulling no punches, the author discusses how therapy and medication helped him navigate his mental health issues and allowed him to embrace neurodivergence as the source for the “loose balloon” ideas he credits for his successes. Remaining authentic and vulnerable in spaces overrun by toxic masculinity also became part of his regimen to remain healthy. “I’d always grown up with the cliché that men hate to talk, but it’s just not true,” he writes. “All you need is a few positive experiences to realize that wow—talking about our feelings actually makes things better.” In that spirit, Fall discusses Alan, his anxiety, and Bob, his inner critic, with refreshing openness and humor. At a time when the highly flawed alpha male credo of “stronger, harder, better” still dominates ideas about success, Fall’s book offers a welcome take on both masculinity and the nature of creativity.
A quirky and inspiring story.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780306830952
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Hachette Go
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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