The vitriol wears thin, but sharp writing makes this a worthwhile read for fans who know Cleveland’s pain.
An embittered, lifelong Cleveland fan chronicles the painful departure of LeBron James from the Cavaliers, taking stock of his own life in the process.
Among long-suffering fan bases, Cleveland sports fans can make a legitimate claim to the top spot. With no championships to celebrate since the Browns won the NFL Championship in 1964 (in the pre–Super Bowl era), they have suffered an ignominious procession of near misses and heartbreaking defeats in football, baseball and basketball. When James, perhaps the most physically gifted basketball player ever to grace the hardwood—and a native son from nearby Akron to boot—was drafted by the Cavaliers in 2003, all of that miserable history seemed likely to end. Unfortunately for Esquire writer Raab (Real Hollywood Stories: Inside the Minds of 20 Celebrities, With One A-list Writer, 2008) and his tortured brethren, the next seven years would bring only more pain, with James leading the Cavs to only one NBA Finals appearance, where they came up short. In the summer of 2010, the King took his talents to South Beach, and the author decided to take matters into his own hands, chronicling the now-hated icon’s quest to win a championship with the Miami Heat. Raab hurls intricate helixes of epithet-laden invective at James, though each profane outburst feels less cathartic than it should (the book’s title comes from one such verbal haymaker launched on Twitter). Instead, it’s the author’s blunt evaluation of his own life—including his battles with alcohol, drugs, weight and relationship problems—that resonates as a mirror for Cleveland’s own festering decay and constant struggle. Unlike Cleveland, though, Raab can take solace in the fact that he finally found a good woman and fathered a son, championship victories denied his beloved Cleveland—that, and the fact that James failed in his first attempt to win a championship in Miami.
The vitriol wears thin, but sharp writing makes this a worthwhile read for fans who know Cleveland’s pain.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-206636-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
A book both educational and emotional.
A Vietnam War story about the mostly unreported role of military wives who ignored protocol to help free their husbands, held as prisoners of war, from torture by the North Vietnamese.
Relying on extensive personal interviews and previously unseen documents, Lee (Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause, 2014) builds to February 1973, when 115 American POWs departed North Vietnam on U.S. military transport planes to receive health care, debriefings, and finally emergence into public view. Many of the American airmen never thought they would be shot from the sky, captured, and tortured—partly because of their ultraconfidence in their training, partly because they severely underestimated the fighting capabilities of the North Vietnamese military. Their wives back in the States, many with children, naturally felt desperate to learn the fates of their husbands. However, commanders in the American military services and diplomats in the U.S. State Department told them, often in condescending fashion, to remain quiet and docile so that negotiations with the enemy could proceed. Eventually, after years of excruciating worry, the wives of the prisoners—as well as fliers missing in action—began to actively discuss how to remedy the situation. As more years passed with no progress, wives on bases scattered around the country began organizing together. Lee’s cast of determined women is extensive and occasionally difficult to track as they enter and depart the narrative. Two of the most prominent are Sybil Stockdale (husband Jim) and Jane Denton (husband Jeremiah). (The renowned John McCain does not play a major role in the narrative.) In addition to the wrenching personal stories, the author handles context gracefully, especially regarding the wives and their ability to find their voices amid the continuing saga of an unjust war. “If these military wives hadn’t rejected the ‘keep quiet’ policy and spoken out,” she writes, “the POWs might have been left to languish in prison.”
A book both educational and emotional.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-16110-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
Take a journey to Ixtlan—by way of Swaziland—in this verbose, self-conscious narrative by the only white man to have ever become a sangoma, a traditional African healer. A former television writer and co-author of Makeba: My Story (not reviewed), Hall spent two years learning how to summon his lidlotis, the spirits of the dead who emerge to possess his body during nightly rituals. As a sangoma-in-training, Hall accumulates eight spirits, including those of a distantly related Scotsman, an American Indian, a fetus (who encourages him to have his own child), and a most incongruous 1930s ad man named Harry, who conversationally tells Hall it was he who thought of the slogan ``Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco.'' Under the tutelage of senior sangomas, Hall digs for medicinal roots; reads animal bones to diagnose physical and spiritual ailments of his patients; bathes in goat blood; and divines the location of hidden objects before admiring tribespeople. Yet all is not rosy, since Hall faces grudging acceptance by the community and is perpetually plagued by foot infections arising from nocturnal barefoot dancing while under the thrall of his lidlotis. A self-described former ``casual'' Catholic, Hall continually confronts his own doubts about the legitimacy of his experiences. Is he schizophrenic, he wonders? Would anyone back home in the States believe him? Is he worthy of being a sangoma? After easily resolving these questions through a fairly insignificant encounter with a colorful troubadour, Hall undergoes his final ritual tests (which include a vomiting contest) and becomes a full-fledged traditional healer. Hall's prose drips with hackneyed phrases such as ``muscular mountains'' and ``ineffable sadness,'' and while he faithfully describes his ritual training, the details can become wearying, particularly the daily digging and grinding of sacred herbs. Readers curious about this vanishing tribal practice may find Hall's book informative, as will glossolaliacs who will appreciate his lidlotis utterances. (8 pages of b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 19, 1994
ISBN: 0-87477-780-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: TarcherPerigee
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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