by Mike Love with James S. Hirsch ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 13, 2016
For Beach Boys completists, essential. For die-hard fans of Love & Mercy, probably one to miss.
The Beach Boy everyone loves to hate speaks his piece—sometimes sweetly, often gruffly, but always candidly.
As has been the case for half a century, Love has axes to grind: Uncle Murry Wilson cut him out of lots of cash. “My dad fucked us,” says cousin Brian, who cut him out of lots of credit. And fans have cut him out of the ardor reserved for the three Wilson brothers—and even Al Jardine. The author tends to the blustery in this memoir, but he’s got claim to bragging rights; after all, as he’s quick to insist, he gave Paul McCartney the idea for the Beach Boys–ish chorus in “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” and he sprinkled the song “Good Vibrations” and the rest of the catalog with special magic. One can certainly appreciate why he might feel bitter, since suits and countersuits have been flying like surfboards atop the cresting waves for decades, but Love is not inclined to make nice even as he drifts toward his ninth decade, and he’s taking no prisoners. When he revisits embarrassing moments such as his notorious Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame induction speech, he’s generally convinced of his righteousness (“I didn’t have time to meditate that day,” he says of that unproud moment, “so I was even more on edge”). A few more efforts to soothe ruffled feathers and forgive trespasses would have taken the aggrieved, resentful edge off this book, but still, it’s good to hear the much-repeated story of the Beach Boys’ implosion from the point of view of the canonical villain of the piece. And you’ve got to admire his stamina: he gets up and goes to it each day, he says, because “the music is now part of our country’s DNA,” and go to it he does, hitting stages all over the world hundreds of times a year.
For Beach Boys completists, essential. For die-hard fans of Love & Mercy, probably one to miss.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17641-8
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
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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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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