Carter and his friend Preston Maybank set out to follow the route Lewis and Clark took on their search for the Northwest Passage. This account is a bumpy mix of slacker comedy, natural history, and bathroom humor. Carter, a former staff writer at M magazine, begins with a brief description of his childhood fascination with Lewis and Clark, which was cut short by his lascivious daydreams about girls (daydreams that seem to have lingered, since an inordinate amount of space is devoted here to descriptions of attractive female teenagers encountered along the way). After christening their raft Sacagawea (after the Native American woman who acted as a guide for Lewis and Clark) with a cup of iced tea from McDonald's, the two set out from St. Louis way behind schedule and already quarreling over which of them is Lewis and which is Clark. Carter and Maybank soon begin to rely on modern conveniences, using credit cards, eating in diners, and eventually renting a car. Unfortunately, the two never seem to have a reason for their trip, other than perhaps to write this book. It seems that Carter is attempting to comment ironically on modern life, and there are glimmers of thoughtful comparison, too, as when they meet up with two Native Americans while fishing and Carter contrasts their encounter with the Lewis and Clark method, which was to shoot off an air gun to instill fear. In the end, Carter and Maybank seem to have taken themselves too seriously to satirize themselves effectively. For example, Carter is truly impressed with his own ability to identify animal droppings with the help of a guidebook. A good idea that putters out, due mostly to an indecisive narrative voice, and a fascination with young women and bowel movements. (b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: July 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-79891-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1994
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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