A wounded and affecting memoir lurks beneath the surface here; pity if it stays buried.
Uneasy memoir/history lesson from a quirky comedian.
Fans of Poundstone’s wry, ironic observational humor were shocked by allegations made in 2001 that the standup comedian had endangered and sexually abused her three adopted children (the charges were later dropped). The specter of that scandal hangs over this collection of ostensibly whimsical essays on the accomplishments of historical figures as contrasted with the quotidian struggles of the author. Poundstone is legally enjoined from discussing the particulars of the case, but her many references to the pain and humiliation she suffered in its wake are charged with a profound anger and emotional rawness that make for an awkward mix with the determinedly breezy tone of the prose. Her descriptions of the bureaucratic nightmare of court dates and mandated therapy sessions, and of her love for her adopted children (some of whom have severe physical and emotional problems) are in fact the most compelling aspects of the book, to the point that the historical material becomes an unwelcome distraction. It’s as if she set out to write a lighthearted monologue with an amusing conceit (Beethoven composed great symphonies despite being deaf, while Poundstone can’t get her daughter to practice piano; rinse, lather, repeat), but her personal trauma keeps bubbling to the surface. This tension has turned a slight and forgettable book into an interesting, if uncomfortable and unsatisfying, one. Poundstone is never less than clever and likable, even as a decidedly odd self-portrait slowly emerges: She portrays herself, with endearingly reflexive self-deprecation, as an alcoholic, completely disengaged from sex, maniacally compulsive about housework, anxious about money and something of an alienated, morbidly private underachiever. It’s this character, rather than Sitting Bull or Joan of Arc, that here commands the reader’s sympathy and interest. A narrative dealing head-on with her legal problems and embattled family would have made for a gripping reading experience indeed.
A wounded and affecting memoir lurks beneath the surface here; pity if it stays buried.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2006
ISBN: 0-609-60316-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
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
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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