A collection of short personal and cultural essays, including journal-like entries, film critiques, and even an elegy, by novelist and critic Tillman (Motion Sickness, 1991; Cast in Doubt, 1992; etc.), combining a handful of new pieces with those drawn from her writings for such publications as Art in America and the Voice Literary Supplement. In her title (does it contain a feminist pun?) and in her concerns, Tillman signals a visual approach to contemporary culture and aesthetics. From her dream-sketch of her father, decribed as ``a lost and found object,'' to her review of a film on Caravaggio, to her observation that flashing seems to have gone out of fashion, to a section of photo stills from the Big Board at Times Square, to thoughts on violence, racism, and writing, Tillman draws attention to the forces she is fighting, or imagines that she is fighting. She says that she distrusts words and stories, yet admits the paradox that they are probably what she values most. In one of the best pieces she explores her difficulty in learning how to discuss race and writing. Her constant search for an original angle is refreshing and constructive, permitting Tillman to contribute to our turbulent current cultural dialogue. ``Criminal Love'' explores the dark side of passion, as it moves effortlessly from the personal to the societal in the O.J. Simpson trial. Simpson appears again in ``Telling Tales,'' as Tillman approaches the Bronco chase as a narrative of reversal of fortune and journey, the odyssey. In other pieces she analyzes her own fiction, describes her work on a book on the early years of Warhol and the Factory, and issues a challenge to writers to serve readers by transcending cultural limitations in their work. Tillman combines a light, frankly personal touch with an informed aesthetic, reflecting a hip, New York art world perspective.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-85242-440-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Serpent’s Tail
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1997
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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