A thoughtful study of a celebrated natural wonder that has come to truly “embod[y] American ideals.”
A sensitive portrait of the iconic national park in terms of the American people’s place in it.
American history and culture converged in the creation and preservation of Yellowstone National Park, as Montana journalist Clayton (Stories from Montana's Enduring Frontier: Exploring an Untamed Legacy, 2013, etc.) delineates in his fine survey. The author proceeds chronologically in his exploration of the many layers of Yellowstone’s significance, from its geological magnificence to its function as a romantic symbol of American self-image and illustration of the dire urgency for ecological attention. Clayton chronicles the stories of people who have been profoundly moved by the natural site and how their sagas dovetail with a larger cultural picture, beginning with the first intentional American expedition (the author sets aside Native American life for another study) by “upper-class explorers” in 1870-1871, which included painter Thomas Moran, who “intended to transform the nature he witnessed into art, into a piece of culture for others to consume,” and “scientist-bureaucrat” Ferdinand Hayden. As the concept of a romantic Western landscape merged with the sense of America's Manifest Destiny, Yellowstone grew in political stature and importance, as did its need for preservation by the 1880s (although Clayton reminds us that the National Park Service was not founded until 1916). Other significant personages in the development of the park as a cultural touchstone (and not just a sanctuary for wild animals) included architect Robert Reamer, who designed and built the eclectic Old Faithful Inn in 1903-1904; National Park leaders Horace Albright and Hermon Carey Bumpus, who advocated for roads and museums to make the park more accessible and “teachable”; twin brothers Frank and John Craighead, who conducted groundbreaking experiments with electronic trackers on grizzlies and other animals; and the valiant firefighters and ecologists who helped the park return to health after devastating fires in 1988.
A thoughtful study of a celebrated natural wonder that has come to truly “embod[y] American ideals.”Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68177-457-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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