An extraordinary grunt’s-eye view of the Vietnam War, by a former CBS News correspondent.
Line troops and combat reporters, writes Laurence, are a superstitious lot. As an “edge against the fear,” he himself wore the same set of threadbare fatigues each time out, didn’t polish his boots, and carried “coins, charms, four-leaf clovers, religious medals and all kinds of talismans”—everything, in short, but a weapon, the lack of which, he hoped, would keep him from being killed. He may have been on to something, for, while covering the 1968 siege of Hue (where he encountered the shell-shocked kitten, the cat of the title, that figures in so much of the narrative), Laurence wandered into the sights of a North Vietnamese army soldier who could easily have shot him dead but, inexplicably, did not. He had many other brushes with death covering military operations up and down Vietnam from 1965 to 1970, but he’s careful to keep his focus on the soldiers, civilians, and other participants less willing than he to be caught up in the fire. That focus is close, and it yields affecting views; of a group of young field marines, for instance, he writes, “War seemed to make them more humane, more gentle, at least with each other, as if everybody involved in this violent undertaking was trying to behave his best, not knowing what might be coming next.” Among the many high points here is a long section describing the author’s time with a star-crossed infantry unit during the invasion of Cambodia, a tour that yielded the documentary The World of Charlie Company. Though many of its threads eventually come together, Laurence’s narrative reads less as a coherent story than as a loose, slightly hallucinatory string of anecdotes, which, considering the circumstances, seems altogether appropriate.
The result is on a par with Michael Herr’s Dispatches as literature—but, unlike Herr’s book, scrupulously true, making it a standout in a crowded field.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-891620-31-2
Page Count: 864
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
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Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
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More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SELF-HELP
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The debut memoir from the pop and fashion star.
Early on, Simpson describes the book she didn’t write: “a motivational manual telling you how to live your best life.” Though having committed to the lucrative deal years before, she “walked away,” fearing any sort of self-help advice she might give would be hypocritical. Outwardly, Simpson was at the peak of her success, with her fashion line generating “one billion dollars in annual sales.” However, anxiety was getting the better of her, and she admits she’d become a “feelings addict,” just needing “enough noise to distract me from the pain I’d been avoiding since childhood. The demons of traumatic abuse that refused to let me sleep at night—Tylenol PM at age twelve, red wine and Ambien as a grown, scared woman. Those same demons who perched on my shoulder, and when they saw a man as dark as them, leaned in to my ear to whisper, ‘Just give him your light. See if it saves him…’ ” On Halloween 2017, Simpson hit rock bottom, and, with the intervention of her devoted friends and husband, began to address her addictions and underlying fears. In this readable but overlong narrative, the author traces her childhood as a Baptist preacher’s daughter moving 18 times before she “hit fifth grade,” and follows her remarkable rise to fame as a singer. She reveals the psychological trauma resulting from years of sexual abuse by a family friend, experiences that drew her repeatedly into bad relationships with men, most publicly with ex-husband Nick Lachey. Admitting that she was attracted to the validating power of an audience, Simpson analyzes how her failings and triumphs have enabled her to take control of her life, even as she was hounded by the press and various music and movie executives about her weight. Simpson’s memoir contains plenty of personal and professional moments for fans to savor.
An eye-opening glimpse into the attempted self-unmaking of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable talents.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-289996-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
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