Witty and disarming.
Having conquered the English Channel in their narrowboat (Narrow Dog to Carcassonne, 2008), the plucky septuagenarian Terry Darlington, his long-suffering wife Monica and their whippet Jim sail the southern portion of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.
The author narrates in a tumbling patchwork of memories, anecdotes, snatches of poetry and minimally punctuated dialogue. The alien spectacle of their narrowboat—60 feet long and less than seven feet wide—drew crowds of onlookers everywhere they stopped, from the Chesapeake Bay to the charming port of Savannah, Ga. Accompanying the pair was Jim, the narrow dog of the title, who valiantly endured what must have been an uncomfortable nine months—and 1,150 miles—spent aboard the Phyllis May. Both dog and owner share a flair for melodrama, and Darlington’s woe-is-me absurdity maintains a reliable comic effect. He is sarcastic and romantic in equal measure, and sharp enough to draw humor from every port of call. For the reader, the joys of their journey are not found in marvels of nature or maritime details—though there are plenty—but in the pair’s irreverent reactions to their seemingly endless hurdles and triumphs. The actual time the Darlingtons spent sailing was minimal; most of their adventures involved being stranded in one seaside town after another, awaiting boat repairs, medical attention or better weather before chugging along. Considering the prodigious outpouring of support and hospitality they encountered on the trip, Darlington can be a bit harsh on the quirky Southern communities they visited—though his chief complaint, besides the state of American lager (fair enough), seemed to be that Jim was not allowed in the bars. One wonders what watery passage they will be tempted to navigate next.
Witty and disarming.Pub Date: April 28, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-34209-4
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Delta
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2009
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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