A pleasant, cheerful reminiscence that offers some engaging glimpses into daily life in one of the few truly remote areas of...
Tschirgi presents a debut memoir that extols the joys of a childhood spent in tiny Tok, Alaska—population: about 1,200.
According to the author, her father, Steve Breeser, dreamed of being able to live in Alaska, and he and his new bride, Marsha, even gave it a try back in 1971. But there were no jobs to be had, and at summer’s end, they were forced to return to the lower 48. In 1982, when Tschirgi was 6, Steve’s work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finally offered him the opportunity he’d been waiting for: a posting in small-town Tok. The Breesers packed themselves, their two kids, and one dog into two cars (including one loaded with 100 pounds of wheat to get them through the Alaskan winter), and headed north to begin what would become a life-defining decade for the author. It seems to have been a childhood totally free of angst, and the isolation of living in the middle of Alaska, as described here, was not so much a challenge as it was an adventure. The image that emerges of the little, isolated outpost is one of welcoming neighbors, devoted teachers, kids riding their bikes and playing Kick the Can during the endless daylight of Alaskan summers, and swimming in the frigid waters of Moon Lake (although people carried “some passengers known as leeches” out with them when they returned to shore). Tschirgi’s prose is lighthearted, articulate, and conversational. However, there’s a curious absence of passion in her tone, and the book is more of a reporting of events than a reliving of them. There’s no tension or conflict, although the author does share a couple of very Alaskan-style close calls; how many Americans, for example, can say they were charged by a mother moose protecting her babies? Overall, this slim volume, which comes complete with a number of family-album photos, is intended to be, and most definitely is, a loving tribute to the author’s father and to the Alaska of her youth.
A pleasant, cheerful reminiscence that offers some engaging glimpses into daily life in one of the few truly remote areas of the United States.Pub Date: May 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4575-3772-1
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Dog Ear
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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