A well-crafted, intimate portrait of an unlikely, all-American rock-’n’-roll life.
Biography of a working-class teacher who became a prolific punk icon.
In his debut, writer and lyricist Cutter examines the life and art of the curmudgeonly, beloved Robert Pollard, leader of Guided by Voices, and his improbable success after years of home-recording obscurity. As Pollard recalls, “the fact that it actually happened when I was thirty-six, it was kind of mind-blowing.” Based on interviews with Pollard and other principals, the book mirrors the shaggy dog story feel of Pollard’s private universe of songcraft. The author acutely captures how Pollard’s wry self-mythologizing derives from his biographical relationship with Dayton, Ohio, its blue-collar eccentricities and rock-’n’-roll underground. During Pollard’s rowdy childhood, he both excelled in athletics and created a world of collage art and imaginary, epic rock bands; he began recording and sporadically performing with a circle of like-minded friends. At first, Pollard’s low-fi theatricality equally charmed and alienated his family, neighbors, and rival bands. He pursued these projects even as he started a family and became a well-liked teacher. All of this fed GBV’s strengths once they connected with the indie-rock cognoscenti. They eventually signed to Matador Records and went on to dominate the fervently self-aware, high-stakes, post-Nirvana 1990s indie scene. His childhood fantasies realized, success and endless touring drove Pollard to become outwardly abrasive and more domineering with his band mates, leading to high turnover and plenty of decadent backstage drama, all ably captured here. Still, Cutter portrays Pollard as a large-hearted figure, driven to maintain creative control and satisfy fans’ desire (and his own standards) for ever lengthier, crazed, and inebriated performances. Pollard has sporadically retired and revived GBV since 2004; Cutter concludes, “finally, Bob realized he didn’t need a label and its expectations to have what he’d always wanted.” The author’s lively writing captures the arc of indie-rock’s mainstreaming, although his exegesis of dozens of Pollard songs may appeal mainly to GBV’s (many) obsessive fans.
A well-crafted, intimate portrait of an unlikely, all-American rock-’n’-roll life.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-306-82576-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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