What it was like to return to civilian life after eight and a half years as a POW, told blandly by Alvarez (Chained Eagle, YA, 1989—not reviewed), with help from Schreiner (A Place Called Princeton, 1984, etc.). Alvarez was the first US flyer shot down in Vietnam, and on his return in 1973 he was welcomed as so many Vietnam vets were- -finding himself alone (his wife divorced him during his captivity), living behind ``a plexiglass emotional shield'' in a country so divided that he was at odds with his mother and antiwar activist sister. His tale here is one of reconstruction and success, lacking the intensity, drama, and terror of most veterans' memoirs because Alvarez seems first and foremost a tough, levelheaded man, a survivor who was recognized in prison as a leader and a source of strength. An engineer by training, later an attorney, he took his role as an officer and his code of conduct with ultimate seriousness, he says, and was sustained by them. (He notes that POWs as a group did well in readjusting to civilian life.) The profound disruption and deep reassessments one expects are not here; nor is Alvarez's Hispanic heritage a prevailing concern. Far more prominent are his natural gravitation to high circles of power and his long relationship with President and Nancy Reagan and their associates. With his obvious capabilities, conservative bent, and practicality, Alvarez shrugs off misunderstandings (including a funny one with agent Swifty Lazar) and gets on with his life, first as deputy director of the Peace Corps, then in a similar position in the Veterans Administration, then as a Beltway entrepreneur. What we don't get is any close scrutiny of the how and why of Vietnam and its deeper effects on either veterans or this country. Lifeless prose in a memoir that also lacks the excitement, drive, and focus of self-discovery. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Dec. 16, 1991
ISBN: 1-55611-310-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1991
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
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