A less-than-average celebrity memoir of the averagely famous Motown singer, written with the coauthor of Micky Dolenz's I'm a Believer (1993). Reeves scored hits with the anthemic ``Dancing in the Street,'' the rollicking ``Heat Wave,'' and the gutsy ``Nowhere to Run (Nowhere to Hide).'' Her father was a sharecropper and, like many Southern blacks, brought his family to Detroit after WW II in search of a better life. In high school, Reeves formed the Del- Phis, and they cut one local single. When she lucked into a job as a secretary at fledgling Motown Records, she began working as a background singer with two of her friends; the trio was soon renamed Martha and the Vandellas. They toured with the first ``Motortown Revue''; Reeves tells of performing for a segregated house in the South: ``We [sang] all of the songs twice; once in one direction, and the same song about-face.'' She crossed paths with many Motown legends, from Marvin Gaye (whom the Vandellas accompanied on many early recordings) to Mary Wells, the Temptations, and Smokey Robinson, but tells little about their personalities or their music. Those hoping for catty details of how young ``Diane'' Ross pushed her way into the spotlight will find only the occasional crumb. ``Diane [stole] onstage adlibs from everyone,'' Reeves complains, going on to assert that the Supremes once copied the Vandellas' gowns, forcing them to quickly come up with new outfits. She gives only a sketchy description of her descent into pill addiction and the bad LSD trip that precipitated a late-'60s nervous breakdown. Her ``comeback'' in the '80s and '90s has mostly consisted of rehashing her old hits. Motown historians will glean little new about Reeves's life; fans of the kiss-and-tell genre will be disappointed by the dearth of dirt. (Three 8-page b&w photo inserts, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Aug. 25, 1994
ISBN: 0-7868-6024-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994
Problematic structure aside, a comprehensive history of Latin America's largest country.
A thoroughly documented scholarly treatise on Brazilian history.
In the first of two volumes spanning 500 years of Brazilian history, Hufferd focuses on the first 300 years of colonization in the northeast region. Portugal was seeking to build maritime trade to compete successfully with archrival Spain and to retain its national identity. The colony expanded westward from a number of large tracts of lands called captaincies, granted by Portuguese monarchs to wealthy royal favorites in return for profits gained through trade, breeding cattle and other ventures. These captaincies eventually gained the status of states, including São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mato Grasso, Manaus and Amazonia. Over subsequent decades, enterprising adventurers and explorers from these captaincies ventured inland, establishing sugar mills, cultivating grazing land and extracting gold, silver and precious gems. All ventures were highly labor-intensive, requiring massive amounts of manpower driven by slaves from Africa and native tribes. In the second volume, Hufferd focuses on the final 200 years of Brazil's rapid industrialization. After the Portuguese monarchy was forced to relocate its base from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, it became the fulcrum of a delicate political system within the new country. The social and political structure favored privileged hereditary landowners, even after the last reigning Emperor Pedro II was deposed amidst strong republican sentiment. Continuing the narrative through 2000, Hufferd chronicles upheavals most often caused by the chronic underdevelopment of existing resources, as the landowners maintained authority over the land, to the detriment of the black, mulatto and tribal segments of Brazilian society, who remained disenfranchised until recent years. In each volume, the author illustrates his vast knowledge of the topic, and he weaves political, economic, social and biographical threads throughout the panoramic narrative. While the expansive footnotes demonstrate impeccable research, they eventually hinder the narrative flow, requiring endless paging back and forth–the dissertation-style format ultimately detracts from the book's impact.
Problematic structure aside, a comprehensive history of Latin America's largest country.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2006
ISBN: 1-4208-0278-X, Vol.
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
At 91, Spock (Dr. Spock on Parenting, 1988, etc.) offers his twilight thoughts on American society—and they're not happy ones. Although Spock's jabs come from the political left, his diagnosis is not unlike that of social conservatives like William Bennett. Among his points: The unraveling of family cohesiveness is a major cause of the country's social ills; there is a ``progressive coarsening of the society's attitude toward love and sexuality, which is further cheapened and exploited by television, films and popular music.'' But Spock also argues for better day-care facilities so that single motherhood needn't sentence both parent and child to poverty. He also discusses racial and gender discrimination. At heart, the old doctor is battling against a bottom-line, instrumental valuation of human life, an obsession with material riches rather than an appreciation of emotional richness.
Pub Date: Sept. 19, 1994
ISBN: 1-882605-12-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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