A disappointing twist on the bestselling 41: A Portrait of My Father (2014). Readers may wish the authors had aimed at...
A sometimes-amusing sendup of Jeb Bush, contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
In this parody written in the voice of former President George W. Bush, his brother, Jeb, is variously described as a bonehead, a fat dope, a natural-born bumbler, and a heroic blubber-butt in need of guidance on “his journey” to the White House. Who better to show him the way than big brother George, who helped Jeb learn to walk (“Those who cannot walk cannot lead”) and shared his childhood of “Freemason rituals, bloodlettings and animal sacrifices,” with “masked Illuminati sex parties” on weekends? In a slight follow-up to their 2006 parody, Destined for Destiny: The Unauthorized Autobiography of George W. Bush, The Onion founder Dikkers and public radio producer Hilleren recount the facts and foibles, real and imagined, of Jeb’s life and career, from his ineptitude with women (an exception being his marriage to a “pretend” Mexican woman) and his profiting from business failures (a family tradition) to his “great vision of a lower tax on corporations and a ‘choose life’ license plate” as two-time governor of Florida, where he also helped keep alive comatose Terri Schiavo and fought “powerful coral-reef interests” to promote offshore drilling. As it happens, clueless author George often upstages his subject, with ceaseless bragging about his own accomplishments, his penchant for communicating through images (he paints hot dogs and Tater Tots to order them in a restaurant), and his qualifications to serve as a presidential adviser on the Mideast. Jeb, alas, often seems a poor target for parody: “He’s kind of like a marshmallow. Kinda white, puffy, with an unassuming, bland character.”
A disappointing twist on the bestselling 41: A Portrait of My Father (2014). Readers may wish the authors had aimed at bigger game: the flamboyant Donald Trump, say, parodied in the voice of his developer father.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4555-9285-2
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2015
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
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