Charming correspondence between the Irish short-story writer and his editor at the New Yorker. Over the course of their working relationship, O'Connor (190366) and Maxwell (born 1908) became close friends, and the chronologically arranged text narrates the deepening of their relationship. ``Mr. O'Connor'' and ``Mr. Maxwell'' give way by 1955 to ``Frank'' and ``Bill,'' and in 1956 Maxwell makes the transition to ``Michael,'' the name by which intimates addressed the writer, whose real name was Michael O'Donovan. (Most of the very few letters from the 1940s and early 1950s included here were exchanged with Gus Lobrano, who preceded Maxwell as O'Connor's New Yorker editor). Textual queries reveal the New Yorker's famously exacting editing process; indeed, it's slightly chilling, when O'Connor submits two stories in 1965 after a long dry spell, to read in Maxwell's rejection the blunt comment that ``the characters do not have the breath of life in them.'' Since editor Steinman (English/Nassau Community College) does not provide plot synopses, the extremely specific editorial comments will primarily engage those who are very familiar with O'Connor's work. Much more accessible are the two men's warm accounts of family life. ``Saturday I built a tree house for the children, and was as pleased as if I had written something,'' Maxwell writes in 1965; O'Connor bemoans in 1958 the fact that babies are so common in Dublin that his ``glorious'' infant daughter ``can be paraded through all the principal streets without anyone saying as much as `What a pretty child!' '' Also appealing are the correspondents' unabashed expressions of affection: ``I want Bill Maxwell,'' O'Connor reports ``wailing'' to his wife in one letter, while Maxwell signs off in another as ``Your friend who loves you.'' Most readers will pick up this volume for its literary interest, but the human content is what makes it memorable.
Pub Date: May 17, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-44659-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1996
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
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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