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
The book begins in Sri Lanka with the tsunami of 2004—a horror the author saw firsthand, and the aftermath of which he...
The latest from French writer/filmmaker Carrère (My Life as a Russian Novel, 2010, etc.) is an awkward but intermittently touching hybrid of novel and autobiography.
The book begins in Sri Lanka with the tsunami of 2004—a horror the author saw firsthand, and the aftermath of which he describes powerfully. Carrère and his partner, Hélène, then return to Paris—and do so with a mutual devotion that's been renewed and deepened by all they've witnessed. Back in France, Hélène's sister Juliette, a magistrate and mother of three small daughters, has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that crippled her in adolescence. After her death, Carrère decides to write an oblique tribute and an investigation into the ravages of grief. He focuses first on Juliette's colleague and intimate friend Étienne, himself an amputee and survivor of childhood cancer, and a man in whose talkativeness and strength Carrère sees parallels to himself ("He liked to talk about himself. It's my way, he said, of talking to and about others, and he remarked astutely that it was my way, too”). Étienne is a perceptive, dignified person and a loyal, loving friend, and Carrère's portrait of him—including an unexpectedly fascinating foray into Étienne and Juliette's chief professional accomplishment, which was to tap the new European courts for help in overturning longtime French precedents that advantaged credit-card companies over small borrowers—is impressive. Less successful is Carrère's account of Juliette's widower, Patrice, an unworldly cartoonist whom he admires for his fortitude but seems to consider something of a simpleton. Now and again, especially in the Étienne sections, Carrère's meditations pay off in fresh, pungent insights, and his account of Juliette's last days and of the aftermath (especially for her daughters) is quietly harrowing.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9261-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
