A luminous portrait of a life that transcends constraints.
A mentally disabled man feistily perseveres in this wry, heartwarming memoir.
Born with cerebral palsy after he was deprived of oxygen during a troubled delivery, the author’s brother “Wendy” Jacobson suffered partial paralysis and permanent mental retardation. (To top it off, he developed epilepsy in his teens.) Rejecting doctors’ advice to institutionalize him, his parents raised him as normally as possible, and he grew into a man of limited intellect, halting speech, spastic gait and expansive soul. Writing with a limpid prose style and a clear-eyed empathy, Jacobson pens an evocative portrait of his brother and the blessings and burdens of his existence. Now in his 70s, a grizzled coot with the mind of a child, Wendy is often stubborn and exasperating (especially on matters of personal hygiene) and obsessive about pestering people on the phone. But he also has an open, welcoming attitude toward others and himself—“good-lookin’ man like me” is his cheerfully ironic characterization of his own off-beat looks—a stern work ethic and an exuberant, garrulous charm that makes friends of everyone he meets. Jacobson is frank about Wendy’s limitations, which are severe and at times heartbreaking, but he also shows us the meaning and satisfaction his brother draws from simple pleasures. Wendy’s triumphs are as inspiring as they are commonplace—in a miracle of patient resolve, his father manages to teach him to ride a bike even though he can barely walk—and the impact of his life on those around him significant. Jacobson’s account of Wendy’s long, tender relationship with a woman even more handicapped than himself is especially moving. The author draws homespun morals from his brother’s struggles, but they are hardly needed; there’s plenty of uplift just watching Wendy play the difficult hand he was dealt with gusto.
A luminous portrait of a life that transcends constraints.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2011
ISBN: 978-0615492957
Page Count: 122
Publisher: Lyle Jacobson
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2011
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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