by Paul Perry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 15, 1993
This breezy, superficial book is a ``violently unauthorized biography'' of America's notorious ``outlaw'' journalist. Part groupie, part hagiographer, Perry (coauthor, On the Bus, 1990—not reviewed) seems determined to prove that Thompson's life is interchangeable with his literary persona: a wild man whose capacity for drugs is Olympian, and who needs this excess to produce his eccentric art. Straightforward, conventional, and anecdotal, Perry's narrative avoids imitating Thompson's manic prose style. But there's something too sober and bland about this uncritical portrait based largely on interviews with Thompson's friends. As a 50's adolescent, Thompson raised hell in Louisville, Kentucky, where he failed to distinguish himself at school or sports. His obsession with ``the failure of the American Dream'' seems to be rooted in profound social resentment. A poor kid whose best friends were rich and Ivy-bound, Thompson landed in the Air Force, where he discovered that journalism could be both fictive and a free ride. As an angry young man, he wrote unpublished novels and committed unsavory deeds (woman-beating, gay-bashing, etc.). But his interest in literature and journalism, in Perry's view, redeems his boorish behavior. A stint with The National Observer allowed Thompson to develop his singular style of participatory reporting, but it wasn't until he covered the Kentucky Derby that his ``gonzo'' technique began. From then on, Thompson and his cohorts made themselves the story. ``Hooked on radical politics,'' Thompson found indulgence at Rolling Stone, where his work was coaxed out from him. Thompson's cocaine paranoia of the 80's accounts for his decline as a writer, says Perry, who nevertheless managed to midwife a piece from him as editor of Running magazine. A memoir of this experience adds a vivid, if self-serving, bit of detail to a legendary career. Despite much testimony to Thompson's debauchery, Perry skirts the important facts of his life (e.g., his family), and fails to see how sad a saga this is. (First printing of 50,000)
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 1993
ISBN: 1-56025-012-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1992
Share your opinion of this book
More by Raymond Moody
BOOK REVIEW
by Raymond Moody and Paul Perry
BOOK REVIEW
by Barry Clifford with Paul Perry
BOOK REVIEW
by Barry Clifford & Paul Perry
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Share your opinion of this book
More by Elie Wiesel
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
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
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.