There are, we know, regular woodland verities: the cry of a loon across a lake, the bellow of an elk on a starlit mountain, and various other calls of nature. Add to the list of recurrent natural events the humorous essays of McManus (How I Got This Way, 1994, etc.), the resident clown/scholar of Outdoor Life. McManus is ably supported in his less-than-credible buffoonery and outdoor adventures by a long-running stock company of rubes, including Rancid Crabtree, Eddie Muldoon, and Retch Sweeney. His droll essays remain generally entertaining and slick, though there are some signs of immoderate literary heavy-lifting in his 13th collection. Mountain man Crabtree's hillbilly dialect seems to be thickening sufficiently to double for the vaudeville patois of Dogpatch. There are times when McManus's comic descriptions of hunting and fishing pratfalls seem forced. Readers may be surprised by the more wistful tone of some of the recent tales by our hayseed Hemingway. There is, for example, a sweet elegy on angling for the dream fish. The elegiac tone is most evident in McManus's reveries of his idyllic (if disaster-prone) childhood during the Depression. Judging by the recollections included here, one may reasonably surmise that his childhood resembled that of the ``Little Rascals,'' including a scrappy gang of friends and a nubile teacher with dimpled knees. Only rarely does Pat let a fact get in the way of his musings. One occasion: He was once hired as a university English instructor. That, he hastens to reassure us before we begin to take him too seriously, was ``solely on the basis that I smoked a pipe.'' It may be that after another dozen or so books like this, old Pat's cow won't milk any more. Meanwhile, more huntin' and fishin' country humor for old fans and new urban owners of utility vehicles. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-84440-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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