A lot of good writing in search of a story with some juice left in it.
In the process of writing a book about her mother’s stories of her childhood trauma, the author found herself in a tussle over who owns the story.
"In my mother’s narrative of our lives,” writes McLaren, “the one I accepted and understood, the Horseman was both the clue and the final reveal. He was the keystone in the arch, the signature at the bottom of every page. As Homer Simpson once observed of beer, the Horseman was the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems." The author describes how she wanted to use her mother’s stories of abuse, starting at the age of 12, by her riding teacher, the Horseman, as material for a memoir, a project on which her mother, also a writer, had agreed to collaborate, according to McLaren. However, once the book was sold and the manuscript begun, her mother, Cecily Ross, withdrew her permission, deciding to keep the story for her own use, the author says. Rather than comply, McLaren chose to weave the unfolding conflict into the narrative, including the fact that her mother beat her to print with a 2020 essay in the Literary Review of Canada aggressively titled "This Story Is Mine." Her daughter disagrees. "Stories are like children,” she writes, “and children are like barn fires….Go ahead, toss a match in the hay. After that the thing will live and breathe. It will go where it wants. You cannot pretend to own it any more than you can control it." In the end, McLaren took a compromise position, minimizing the Horseman material and centering the mother-daughter relationship and other stories about her childhood—from a cruel game she played with her little sister to the pitched battles she fought with her stepmother to what seems like an early discovery of microdosing when she was in high school: "I spend my school days in a blur, snacking from the bottomless ziplock bag of magical fungus….Taken in small quantities, mushrooms lift my spirits."
A lot of good writing in search of a story with some juice left in it.Pub Date: July 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-303718-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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