An earnest account of a passionate marriage.
Love overcomes the boundaries imposed by language and political borders in this debut romantic memoir.
Cloutier was raised in a traditional household near Naples, Italy. The children and her mother deferred to her father in all matters, with homemade meals served three times a day. When her mother died unexpectedly, as the oldest child there was no question that the author would manage the household. After returning from the hospital, her father coldly asserted: “Let’s go, Luisa…the kids are hungry.” She desperately hoped for more. Her brother’s girlfriend discovered that American Marines would attend a local dance and encouraged her to enjoy a rare night out. She met a handsome Marine named Brandon, who treated her with more respect than the patriarchal Italians: “God must have heard my prayers and sent me this American Marine.” Romance ensued despite the language barrier. Eventually, Brandon was sent back to the United States, and, months later, Cloutier followed him. They didn’t want to separate again so they married and the author obtained citizenship. But like many young couples struggling financially, they worked long hours and spent less time together. She became disenchanted: “We’re not married. You’re never here…I just can’t live like this.” After a brief separation, they reunited and rekindled their love. Tragically, one night Brandon went to take a shower and suddenly collapsed. An undiagnosed heart condition ended their fairy-tale romance after only a decade together. In her candid memoir, Cloutier recalls a love that was more intense than many lifetime liaisons. The strongest parts of the account deliver deft descriptions of the cherished traditions and outdated gender dynamics of Italy. But while the book is certainly unconventional in many respects, it doesn’t provide enough sparkling passages and unexpected reflections to make it stand out in the overcrowded romance and memoir fields. Although the work recounts the author’s painful and revelatory journey after her beloved husband’s death, the final chapter offers readers an abrupt ending. In addition, a bevy of mundane details slows the story’s momentum (“The next weekend, when Brandon came down from Twenty-nine Palms, I walked outside to the driveway to greet him. As I approached the car, I felt the heat from the motor after the two hour drive. Brandon opened the door and climbed out”).
An earnest account of a passionate marriage.Pub Date: May 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68433-052-2
Page Count: 190
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
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
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
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