The 115-year history of a family farm reveals few skeletons, too many sidetracks, and the decline of an American institution. Writing of birthing livestock and harvesting fields with a straightforward ``the nights grow longer'' brand of simplicity, Hildebrand (Reading the River, 1988) explores the farmland existence of four generations of his wife's family in a narrative with more grandparents, cousins, and in-laws than you can shake a stick at. Plenty of potentially enjoyable tales are set up, only to fall flat at the payoff. It's Hildebrand's literary misfortune that he married into a family that suffered a drought of extreme tragedies or spectacular successes. He seems a bit of an outsider to this clan as well and so focuses on concrete events rather than risk exploring the internal lives of his wife's parents and sibs. Additionally, the book tackles a bevy of historical topics as diverse as the Irish migration, the Agricultural Allotment Act, 4-H Clubs, and WW IIera flight training. Because of this, and with so much familial history being chronicled, the emotional attachment the reader wishes to place on the endangered land and on Ed, the weakened patriarch who has shared too little of his wisdom with his offspring, is deflected, and one must parcel attention in several directions at once. Were this Dickens's England, such an effort might prove worthwhile; but this is Rochester, Minn., where, as the dairy princess in a gopher celebration parade understands, ``once you've been paraded down Main Street in your prom dress there's nothing much left to do except leave.'' A less than gripping account of a farm family muddling its way through the century as tradition gives way to compromise. (8 pages photos, not seen)
Pub Date: June 12, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-43009-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
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
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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