An accomplished and highly readable contribution to the recent wave of revisionist Chaplin biographies (such as Joyce Milton's Tramp, 1996). Reviled at the height of the Cold War as a moral bankrupt and a Communist sympathizer, then apologetically forgiven in the '70s as a persecuted genius, Chaplin is now under attack again. Perhaps time, which wounds all heels, has allowed a proper perspective, or perhaps Chaplin's victim persona is out of step with our ``pull yourself together'' culture, but either way, the Little Tramp's reputation is close to an all-time low. Lynn's (Hemingway, 1987, etc.) account is hardly the nastiest. In fact, he has a certain grudging respect for his subject. But he does make sure to highlight Chaplin's heedless politics (such as defending Stalin's show trials and pogroms), and no moral failing, from his stinginess and ingratitude to his fondness for young girls, is left unremarked. Lynn also continues the process of whittling away at Chaplin's movies. While acknowledging some, such as City Lights and The Gold Rush, as masterpieces, he dismisses most of the ``talkies'' (hardly a unique critical position). Most biographers have focused on Chaplin's traumatic childhood as the source of his creativity—and insufferability—but Lynn does an excellent job of teasing out innumerable autobiographical elements in Chaplin's work. He also offers some useful correctives. For example, through an ingenious use of maps and data, he is able to determine that the various lodgings the young Chaplin lived in weren't as Dickensian and bleak as Chaplin claimed. This leads Lynn to speculate that Chaplin's barely employed mother might have engaged in prostitution. Lynn also dabbles in Freudian interpretations of Chaplin's behavior and work that are compelling, if not always completely convincing. While this biography isn't as detailed or thorough as some (for example, Lynn slides over Chaplin's tax troubles in a few sentences), it has all the pacing, sense of character, and narrative verve of a good novel. (24 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-80851-X
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1997
At-times inspirational memoir about a journalist’s battle with a grave disease she had to face while also dealing with her...
With the assistance of Chambers (co-author; Yes, Chef, 2012, etc.), broadcaster Roberts (From the Heart: Eight Rules to Live By, 2008) chronicles her struggles with myelodysplastic syndrome, a rare condition that affects blood and bone marrow.
The author is a well-known newscaster, formerly on SportsCenter and now one of the anchors of Good Morning America. In 2007, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which she successfully fought with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Five years later, after returning from her news assignment covering the 2012 Academy Awards, she learned that chemotherapy had resulted in her developing MDS, which led to an acute form of leukemia. Without a bone marrow transplant, her projected life expectancy was two years. While Roberts searched for a compatible donor and prepared for the transplant, her aging mother’s health also began to gravely deteriorate. Roberts faced her misfortune with an athlete’s mentality, showing strength against both her disease and the loss of her mother. This is reflected in her narration, which rarely veers toward melodrama or self-pity. Even in the chapters describing the transplantion process and its immediate aftermath, which make for the most intimate parts of the book, Roberts maintains her positivity. However, despite the author’s best efforts to communicate the challenges of her experience and inspire empathy, readers are constantly reminded of her celebrity status and, as a result, are always kept at arm's length. The sections involving Roberts’ family partly counter this problem, since it is in these scenes that she becomes any daughter, any sister, any lover, struggling with a life-threatening disease. “[I]f there’s one thing that spending a year fighting for your life against a rare and insidious…disease will teach you,” she writes, “it’s that time is not to be wasted.”
At-times inspirational memoir about a journalist’s battle with a grave disease she had to face while also dealing with her mother’s passing.Pub Date: April 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4555-7845-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting and exquisitely crafted.
Musician, poet and visual artist Smith (Trois, 2008, etc.) chronicles her intense life with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe during the 1960s and ’70s, when both artists came of age in downtown New York.
Both born in 1946, Smith and Mapplethorpe would become widely celebrated—she for merging poetry with rock ’n’ roll in her punk-rock performances, he as the photographer who brought pornography into the realm of art. Upon meeting in the summer of 1967, they were hungry, lonely and gifted youths struggling to find their way and their art. Smith, a gangly loser and college dropout, had attended Bible school in New Jersey where she took solace in the poetry of Rimbaud. Mapplethorpe, a former altar boy turned LSD user, had grown up in middle-class Long Island. Writing with wonderful immediacy, Smith tells the affecting story of their entwined young lives as lovers, friends and muses to one another. Eating day-old bread and stew in dumpy East Village apartments, they forged fierce bonds as soul mates who were at their happiest when working together. To make money Smith clerked in bookstores, and Mapplethorpe hustled on 42nd Street. The author colorfully evokes their days at the shabbily elegant Hotel Chelsea, late nights at Max’s Kansas City and their growth and early celebrity as artists, with Smith winning initial serious attention at a St. Mark’s Poetry Project reading and Mapplethorpe attracting lovers and patrons who catapulted him into the arms of high society. The book abounds with stories about friends, including Allen Ginsberg, Janis Joplin, William Burroughs, Sam Shepard, Gregory Corso and other luminaries, and it reveals Smith’s affection for the city—the “gritty innocence” of the couple’s beloved Coney Island, the “open atmosphere” and “simple freedom” of Washington Square. Despite separations, the duo remained friends until Mapplethorpe’s death in 1989. “Nobody sees as we do, Patti,” he once told her.
Riveting and exquisitely crafted.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-621131-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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