Trite, trivial, and tasteless describe this unrewarding effort of a society reporter, novelist, and ``sometime Washington hostess.'' That latter label horrified Quinn (Happy Endings, 1991) when she heard it aplied to her on Good Morning America. She was, after all, a ``serious journalist,'' and ``hostess'' was synonymous with ``frivolous'' in her view. She was, alas, somehow persuaded otherwise. Quinn has organized a book about giving parties that begins with a credible mantra from her party-giving parents: ``A guest can do no wrong.'' It's downhill from there. Names—from the Clintons to Princess Margaret, Henry Kissinger to Lauren Bacall, and Washington pundits too numerous to mention or remember—are scattered profusely, but many of the anecdotes are pointless and without context. One secret of legendary hostess Perle Mesta's success, she tells us, was to hang a lamb chop in her window to signal a party—but why? Perhaps lamb chops have a kinky sexual connotation not revealed here. More likely, it was WW II and meat was rationed, making lamb chops a surefire lure for partygoers. No hint of that historic motive from Quinn, whose party success meter seems to be how many guests ``in black tie and . . . evening gowns were reclining all over the living room floor giggling.'' Moreover, in a chapter alluringly titled ``The Booze,'' her vaunted motto regarding the immunity of guests stops short at large cocktail parties, where she refuses to serve red wine because ``people spill,'' and coffee after dinner, because ``it kills the party''—presumably sobering everyone up. Other chapters deal equally improbably with table settings, entertainment after the meal, and where to have the party. Beginning and ending chapters are titled ``The Point'' and ``The Point (Again),'' but Quinn seems to have missed it both times. Go to Miss Manners for a useful guide to party giving or to almost any celebrity bio for better anecdotes about parties-I- have-known. (b&w illustrations)
Pub Date: Nov. 5, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-81144-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© 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.
