Detailed, objective, and valuable. (b&w photos)
Lenny Bruce’s career was a rhapsody in blue material. His comedy made him a master of free speech; his death sanctified him. Here, two thoughtful lawyers explore in depth some of the comic’s tribulations and trials.
There’s not much about the man himself. (For straight biography, readers should go back to Albert Goldman’s controversial Ladies and Gentlemen: Lenny Bruce!, 1974.) This is, rather, an exhaustive study of the comedian’s obscenity trials. The legendary prosecutions for dispensing dirty words a generation ago is the topic of discussion. It’s a narrative of how a hipster who worked with junkie jazz bands and hooker strippers became a defender of the Constitution simply by repeating common words for body parts, excreta, and sexual activity. His misdemeanor trials were widely—and inaccurately—reported. The authors set the record straight from the first arrest in San Francisco in 1961. Arrests followed across the country, culminating with the most hotly contested trial in New York. By 1970, the case against Bruce’s co-defendant (operator of the club where he uttered the words) was overturned. But it was too late for Bruce. He died more than three years before of a morphine overdose, booked, it seemed, more frequently in police stations than into clubs, sick, bankrupt, and killed, some said, by the law. The application of the law by both prosecution and defense is deconstructed even-handedly. The major problem may have been the defendant, who fancied himself a legal expert. Playing a shtarker Jewish lawyer, Lenny communicated improperly with judges, missed court dates, dismissed counsel. He wanted to do his act in court; judges wanted to wash his mouth with soap. Today, Bruce is venerated not because he worked blue or talked trash, but because he was truly funny and, more importantly, because he offered honest, seminal social commentary. An audio CD is included so readers may hear, among redundant exposition, the comedian himself, spritzing and killing at top speed.
Detailed, objective, and valuable. (b&w photos)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-57071-986-1
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
At-times inspirational memoir about a journalist’s battle with a grave disease she had to face while also dealing with her...
With the assistance of Chambers (co-author; Yes, Chef, 2012, etc.), broadcaster Roberts (From the Heart: Eight Rules to Live By, 2008) chronicles her struggles with myelodysplastic syndrome, a rare condition that affects blood and bone marrow.
The author is a well-known newscaster, formerly on SportsCenter and now one of the anchors of Good Morning America. In 2007, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which she successfully fought with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Five years later, after returning from her news assignment covering the 2012 Academy Awards, she learned that chemotherapy had resulted in her developing MDS, which led to an acute form of leukemia. Without a bone marrow transplant, her projected life expectancy was two years. While Roberts searched for a compatible donor and prepared for the transplant, her aging mother’s health also began to gravely deteriorate. Roberts faced her misfortune with an athlete’s mentality, showing strength against both her disease and the loss of her mother. This is reflected in her narration, which rarely veers toward melodrama or self-pity. Even in the chapters describing the transplantion process and its immediate aftermath, which make for the most intimate parts of the book, Roberts maintains her positivity. However, despite the author’s best efforts to communicate the challenges of her experience and inspire empathy, readers are constantly reminded of her celebrity status and, as a result, are always kept at arm's length. The sections involving Roberts’ family partly counter this problem, since it is in these scenes that she becomes any daughter, any sister, any lover, struggling with a life-threatening disease. “[I]f there’s one thing that spending a year fighting for your life against a rare and insidious…disease will teach you,” she writes, “it’s that time is not to be wasted.”
At-times inspirational memoir about a journalist’s battle with a grave disease she had to face while also dealing with her mother’s passing.Pub Date: April 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4555-7845-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Skilled and graceful exploration of the soul of an astonishing human being.
Full-immersion journalist Kidder (Home Town, 1999, etc.) tries valiantly to keep up with a front-line, muddy-and-bloody general in the war against infectious disease in Haiti and elsewhere.
The author occasionally confesses to weariness in this gripping account—and why not? Paul Farmer, who has an M.D. and a Ph.D. from Harvard, appears to be almost preternaturally intelligent, productive, energetic, and devoted to his causes. So trotting alongside him up Haitian hills, through international airports and Siberian prisons and Cuban clinics, may be beyond the capacity of a mere mortal. Kidder begins with a swift account of his first meeting with Farmer in Haiti while working on a story about American soldiers, then describes his initial visit to the doctor’s clinic, where the journalist felt he’d “encountered a miracle.” Employing guile, grit, grins, and gifts from generous donors (especially Boston contractor Tom White), Farmer has created an oasis in Haiti where TB and AIDS meet their Waterloos. The doctor has an astonishing rapport with his patients and often travels by foot for hours over difficult terrain to treat them in their dwellings (“houses” would be far too grand a word). Kidder pauses to fill in Farmer’s amazing biography: his childhood in an eccentric family sounds like something from The Mosquito Coast; a love affair with Roald Dahl’s daughter ended amicably; his marriage to a Haitian anthropologist produced a daughter whom he sees infrequently thanks to his frenetic schedule. While studying at Duke and Harvard, Kidder writes, Farmer became obsessed with public health issues; even before he’d finished his degrees he was spending much of his time in Haiti establishing the clinic that would give him both immense personal satisfaction and unsurpassed credibility in the medical worlds he hopes to influence.
Skilled and graceful exploration of the soul of an astonishing human being.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-50616-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
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