An assessment of the first year of Bill Clinton's presidency with no major scoops but with long-term insight into Clinton's style and character. Brummett, a veteran Arkansas journalist and columnist for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, here competes not so much with fellow Arkansas reporter Meredith Oakley (On the Make, p. 614), who exhaustively portrays Clinton's gubernatorial reign, but with ur- investigator Bob Woodward (The Agenda, not reviewed). Though he can't claim Woodward's access or propound verbatim conversations, Brummett did move to Washington and spoke to Clinton, former chief of staff Mack McLarty, and other White House officials. ``Bill Clinton is a man of awesome talent and troubling personal weaknesses,'' Brummett declares at the outset, and his account of Clinton's major efforts and crises bears that out. He grounds Clinton's cautious liberalism and winning personal style in home- state politics and shows how Clinton thrives extemporaneously and dies by TelePrompTer. America needed either ``a great moral leader or a clever policy synthesizer,'' the author argues, and Clinton is the latter, as shown in his budget plan. Brummett's treatments of missteps like the Waco disaster and the White House travel-office scandal add little new. He finds himself sympathetic to Clinton— ``a victim of his own optimism''—regarding his withdrawal of the Lani Guinier nomination. Brummett is more pointed on the suicide of White House chief deputy counsel Vincent Foster: He discounts talk of a scandalous cover-up but argues that any veteran of Arkansas politics should have been prepared for Washington nastiness. While his defense of Clinton's foreign policy performance is weak—he blames subordinates—Brummett notes credibly that Whitewater pales in comparison to previous executive-branch violations of the public interest like Iran-contra. Ultimately, Brummett is optimistic that Clinton will grow into the job—or, if defeated in 1996, return ``Ö la Nixon for us to kick around some more.'' Weaker on policy than politics, but with nuance and psychological truth.
Pub Date: Nov. 8, 1994
ISBN: 0-7868-6046-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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