In this memoir, Burgoon (It All Counts on Twenty, 2014) recalls living in many different homes during his early years.
The author tracks his family’s struggle to achieve the American Dream, starting with his ancestors’ immigration to the United States from France in the 18th century, and ending at the start of World War II. Burgoon grew up during the Great Depression, which made success a hard aim to achieve. As his family quietly struggled, he was passed between relatives, or left to fend for himself. Much of the book recounts the fiercely independent boy’s adventures poking around the melting-pot districts of western Pennsylvania where he grew up. Instead of focusing on one particular theme—the Depression, for example, or the lessons that shaped him—Burgoon instead takes readers on a journey through his childhood as he chronologically experienced it. Unexpected anecdotes, such as a story of a premature baby successfully incubated in an oven, or of poverty-stricken students passing out from hunger in the middle of a lesson, keep things lively. However, the book lags between such dramatic moments; for every shocking sentence about an uncle’s prison experiences, for example, there’s a longer one about finding a golf ball. Overall, the things that excite the narrator most are money and girls, and everything else is given lesser treatment. However, he tells his story with an adult voice that’s kind and conversational, but still holds the innocence of youth. Politics have no place in the narrative, and although his family is often destitute, the author, as narrator, often seems childishly unconcerned. This is a strength of the book, as it’s able to capture the feeling of earning a few cents, for example, with an excitement that many adults would struggle to recreate. But just as often, the memoir glosses over important moments with little analysis; for example, the fact that the author’s father was an abusive, “nasty drunk” is quickly ignored.
A sometimes frustrating memoir, but one endowed with personality.
Pub Date: March 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-1483405933
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 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
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