Interesting drugged-out memories from the original manager of the infamous hippie rock group. Scully was introduced to the Dead by LSD guru Owsley Stanley and became the band's manager-by-default, helping to shape this group of ``crazy-looking guys, high on acid, who had come together higgledy-piggledy'' into the ultimate San Francisco trips band. He is at his best describing, with Dalton (coauthor of Faithfull, not reviewed), the early days of the Dead, when they lived communally in the famous Victorian house at 710 Ashbury Street. With considerable good humor and irony, he recreates the hippie dream of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, along the way describing a memorable cast of characters. An obvious devotee of Jerry Garcia (who emerges as the hero of the group and the book), Scully is harder on the other band members, including Bob Weir, whom he describes as a pitifully inept rhythm guitarist who longs for mainstream pop success; Mickey Hart, a talented drummer, but an opportunist; the eternally drunk and musically limited Pigpen (who is the band's first casualty); musically pretentious Phil Lesh; and stingy Bill Kreutzmann. The book offers valuable insight into the making of the Dead's albums, showing why they have always been better live than in the studio. Memories of the '70s and '80s are less fully realized, as the authors resort to reproducing unedited tour diaries. Scully portrays Garcia's (and his own) early '80s descent into heroin addiction with painful honesty, showing how the rest of the band labored to keep the act alive, even at the price of Garcia's health. The book ends with a brief epilogue written after the news of Garcia's death. An American epic, if not exactly an American Beauty. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Jan. 2, 1996
ISBN: 0-316-77712-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1995
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
