A genre-blending mission report from an atypical disillusioned Vietnam vet.
by Robert Mitchell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 14, 2011
In this memoir, Mitchell (Nurturing the Souls of Our Children, 2005) describes his Vietnam service and his political, sexual, and philosophical awakening during a subsequent European journey of self-discovery.
Mitchell, the product of a nomadic childhood, attributes his early, magical outlook on life to his “Druid” ancestors; it led him to dance naked on moonlit nights beneath the gaze of the “Goddess of the Moon.” In the 1960s, he was fired up by thoughts of battle—inspired less by Cold War–era, anti-Communist fervor than by a primordial, warrior-spirit calling, à la Achilles at Troy. He put up with dehumanizing boot-camp drills so that he could have the chance to fly helicopter scout missions. But he was struck by the Vietnamese countryside and culture, feeling that the enemy Viet Cong had a personal intimacy with nature that the mechanized, “soulless” American side lacked. (In this, he claims to have foreseen America’s defeat.) When an air crash left Mitchell badly burned, he accepted an honorable discharge without ever having the “catharsis” of taking a foe’s life. Restless, he studied the classics and traveled through Europe, where a life-changing love affair with a dashing, confident German actor finally allowed him to embrace same-sex eros (love) over the siren-song of thanatos (death). In Greece, he had a dream-vision of the goddess again, hinting at a journey of rebirth: As he puts it, “the transformation of the warrior into serving the Eros spirit is the objective of the heroic struggle in the soul between love and death.” As this passage shows, the author offers a highly intellectual Vietnam War memoir that’s more poetic than most pain-wracked soldier stories. His ruminations on mythologies, metaphysics, and human sexuality—both classical and modern—have one foot on the battlefield and the other in New Age philosophy and a gay coming-of-age story. Although this book clearly and eloquently springs from the heart, armchair commandos will find their helmets spinning at the diversity of its target acquisitions.
A genre-blending mission report from an atypical disillusioned Vietnam vet.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4663-1303-3
Page Count: 206
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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by Glennon Doyle ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2020
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SELF-HELP
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PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
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