Pug stories—really a lot of pug stories, from sublime to ridiculous—by Kaufman (This Damn House, 1996). She’s the classic pet owner who is owned by her two pugs, Clara and Sophie. Kaufman considers herself to be the “Official Pug Lollipop,” an utter sap for canine manipulation. Sophie is truculent, “a fourteen-pound reincarnation of Mussolini”; Clara is uncontrollable, scheming, self-protective, watchful, and suspicious, not to mention (sometimes) fawning and sluttish. Kaufman coaxes as many laughs as she can from Clara’s antics (Sophie is too much the taskmaster for drollery and so plays second fiddle in the pug hierarchy). Some dominant themes: Clara dismisses Kaufman’s slavish attention and steals the limelight during her book tours. Thus, Kaufman consults a therapist (the coyly named Dr. Pangloss) to sort out her feelings of inferiority and indentured servitude. More authorial coyness: her canine ophthalmologist is called Dr. Blinkmeister. And more (there is far too much coyness here): —Clara loves Saks because all the gay shoe salesmen appreciate an adorable pug and there’s a pet boutique on the ground floor with Versace leashes and a four-hundred-dollar iron four-poster bed that she feels she deserves.— Halfway through the book, with the meat now sliced pretty thin on the dog-joke front, Kaufman shifts her attention away from Clara and tells the saga of adopting her son, Nicholas, from a Siberian orphanage in a bureaucratic process so byzantine and angst-ridden that it makes Clara’s misbehavior seem pedestrian. Then it’s back to Clara again and how she eventually comes to accept Nicholas, which is a lucky thing: Readers may ponder who would have been given walking papers if they hadn’t hit it off. Inevitably, the jokes get stale. Do you wonder why Kaufman doesn’t just trade the thankless beasts for a Lab and get on with her life?
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-679-45261-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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