Jimmy Buffett, the author of pop music hits such as ``Margaritaville,'' chose wisely when he refused to authorize this rambling biography. Eng, author of The Satisfied Mind: The Country Music of Porter Wagner (1992) includes a letter from Buffett near the beginning of the book urging the author not to finish the then-uncompleted work. The letter's inclusion suggests that Eng has written a no-holds- barred biography—which might have worked even without the cooperation of its subject. But Eng is a ``Parrot Head,'' or devout Buffett fan, and so Buffett's lack of input in the book puts the author, and the reader, back in the 100th row. Buffett's music is heavily influenced by sailing, the Caribbean, and its history. Eng includes much to connect Buffett to lore of the last two centuries. But fanciful, unsubstantiated speculations and reckless leaps across history are more confusing than elucidating. Other more modern references are also stretches. One footnote compares Buffett to John Lennon because both had ``childhood seaport backgrounds.'' Another section claims ``William Faulkner's beach-boy casualness was partly Buffett-esque—he went unshaven and wore a rope instead of a belt.'' Eng includes short political and historical vignettes, such as the assassinations of Kennedy and King, to limited effect. Musings by Buffett and those who know him—musicians, former classmates—are often lifted from interviews with other journalists. The biography covers all the bases: family history, childhood, early struggle, musical success, the ``Parrot Head'' phenomenon, love and marriage, the successful fiction efforts, business deals. But Buffett and those around him never come alive. Descriptions of Buffett's prickly manager, Irving Azoff, are the most entertaining sections. Buffett's ``Parrot Head'' followers will certainly pick this up off the shelf. But many will probably put it right back down. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Dec. 20, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-14635-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1996
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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