Alexander, who has anatomized the lives of Patty Hearst, Jean Harris, and others (Anyone's Daughter, 1979, etc.) now wields her scalpel gently but with precision as she dissects her own family history; what is laid bare is tantalizingly mysterious, profoundly sad, and always riveting. Her childhood should have been charmed: Her father, Milton Ager, was a composer of hit tunes, including ``Happy Days Are Here Again''; her mother, Cecelia Ager, was a notedly astute and acerbic film critic. Famous folks waltzed in and out of their lives: George Gershwin, Oscar Levant, ``Dottie'' Parker. But chubby little Shana and her sister, Laurel, were not happy girls. They were suddenly uprooted from their one-of-a-kind apartment (painted for them by stage designer James Reynolds) and moved into a residential hotel with separate bedrooms for each parent (the senior Agers' living pattern for the rest of their very separate lives). Worse yet was the coldness of Cecelia and the harsh regime she imposed on her children. Why did they move? Why, despite their apparent mismatch, did the Agers never divorce? Was George Gershwin ever Cecelia's lover? As the grown-up Shana tries to reconstruct events and resolve these puzzles, a deliciously variegated narrative emerges: a history of Tin Pan Alley; a Jewish immigrant story; tales of tragic love and the complex bonds that tie mothers and daughters. Thanks to Alexander's humanity and insight, these elements all transcend the clichÇs that describe them. And she has a roster of wonderful characters, from her wild, fiery great-aunt, writer Anzia Yezierska, to her second husband, a ne'er-do-well whose reach was pathetically beyond his grasp. The author herself, as she matures, grows obsessed with her wish to be the ideal mother, even as her career burgeons and she fails to conceive a baby. Alexander says she wanted to write Patty Hearst's story because she found it quintessentially American. So is her own story, and she tells it here with great style.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-41815-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1995
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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