Next book

SOULLESS

THE CASE AGAINST R. KELLY

A piercing work of investigative journalism on a celebrity scandal that continues to fester.

A thorough exposé on the alleged misconduct of R&B superstar R. Kelly.

Former Chicago Sun-Times pop music critic DeRogatis (The Velvet Underground: An Illustrated History of a Walk on the Wild Side, 2009, etc.) chronicles his two-decade-long surveillance and reportage of Kelly, 52, in a fiery, shocking analysis. Drawing from a wealth of personal interviews, research material, Kelly’s 2012 memoir, Soulacoaster, and harrowingly detailed episodes from female accusers, the author frames his assessment of Kelly with an account of the afternoon he received an anonymous fax charging the singer with having a “problem” with “young girls.” This accusation stoked his curiosity about Kelly and his unique music, which combined “lascivious bedroom jams with soulful prayers or pleas.” DeRogatis profiles Kelly from his birth in Chicago, through his unsettled childhood on the South Side, where he fell in love with basketball and music yet was plagued by a learning disability and sexual abuse. Despite numerous dead ends, the author persistently chased leads, uncovered startling evidence, and eventually presented a lawsuit-laden report on Kelly’s sexual misdeeds, which was largely ignored by the entertainment media as well as law enforcement and even accusers too afraid to come forward. DeRogatis remained undeterred and continued collecting damning information, including forwarding two anonymously delivered videotapes to police depicting Kelly having sex with supposedly underage girls. The bulk of the book showcases this scandalous material alongside meticulously described allegations and personal attestations from many women accusing the star of sexual abuse, coercion, and the intricate operation of a sex cult. The author’s relentless pursuit of Kelly has only proved fruitful in recent years, as the incriminations against Kelly have killed his music career and landed him in and out of jails and courthouses fighting a dizzying number of sexual misconduct charges. As much as the book is a juicy celebrity tell-all, it more importantly spotlights the women Kelly victimized and their separate journeys toward exposing their truths.

A piercing work of investigative journalism on a celebrity scandal that continues to fester.

Pub Date: June 4, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-4197-4007-7

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Abrams

Review Posted Online: May 30, 2019

Next book

NIGHT

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

Next book

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

Well-told and admonitory.

Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Close Quickview