A vibrant, high-spirited collection that will appeal to those on one side of this complex geopolitical conundrum.
An anthology calling upon American writers to address the plight of the Palestinians.
Editor Freeman (On Sal Mal Lane, 2013, etc.) notes in her introduction, “what can and cannot be done in America is a question that carries enormous hope on the part of people who do not live here.” She casts “the impetus to ask a group of writers to reflect on the ongoing assault on the thin and shifting borders of Palestine” in historical terms, citing similar projects rooted in the tumult of 1937 and 1967. The structure is somewhat jumbled: such sections as “Erasure” or “The Un/Making of History” mix fiction, poetry, or narrative essays, while only some writers provide introductory commentary. Several well-known writers responded with older work, like novelist Colum McCann, who notes, “this might sound odd, but there is as much Gaza as Derry in this story.” In describing her poem “The Story of Joshua,” Alicia Ostricker avers, “as an American Jew...Israel/Palestine is like a weird doppelganger beating and beating alongside my own heart.” Some authors present fusions of form, such as Janne Teller’s alphabetized entry, which indexes the events leading to the current state of conflict. Other writers respond with brief essays examining one aspect of the situation—e.g., Laila Lalami’s “The Nameless Palestinian Prisoners,” which notes the refusal of Israeli newspapers to acknowledge the identities of detainees; or Kiese Laymon’s “My Mama Went to Palestine,” which recalls her mother’s lifelong study of “poverty and structural oppression.” Elsewhere, poet Naomi Shihab Nye tersely compares the deaths of children in Gaza to recollections of an idyllic childhood in Ferguson, Missouri, now known for its own unrest. Other notable contributors include Jane Hirshfield, Tess Gallagher, Leslie Jamison, Claire Messud, Alice Walker, Teju Cole, and George Saunders.
A vibrant, high-spirited collection that will appeal to those on one side of this complex geopolitical conundrum.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-682190-08-1
Page Count: 430
Publisher: OR Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
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
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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