An engrossing autobiography that delivers believable, straightforward accounts of religious extremism and its large, complex...
In this debut memoir, a man recounts his struggles in a Christian cult and as a Muslim surrounded by radicals.
Despised by the other kids at his school for no apparent reason, Prentiss was always troubled. While living with his father south of Chicago, he became drawn to the occult, a startling development for himself and those around him. The author soon moved to St. Louis to live with his mother and the leader of a Christian “spiritual boot camp.” This intensive religious sect, called the Anointed of God Ministries, proved to be little more than torturous slave labor and endless beatings with loose biblical justifications. After finally escaping that harsh life, Prentiss married and had a child; his wife’s career with the Air Force took them to Britain, where he began to re-evaluate his life and his thoughts on religion. Following a divorce and a return to the U.S., he finally settled on Islam as the religion closest to his convictions. He converted, married a Muslim woman, and joined several organizations as an activist for community outreach on behalf of his new religion. But the tragic events of 9/11 would change some of his closest friends, leaving the author to face extremism yet again within his new brethren and make the devastating, dangerous choice to become an informant for the FBI. Prentiss does an excellent job of rendering the violence, fear, and trauma of his early years with brutal descriptions of beatings and the twisted logic he began to actually believe. But it’s in the book’s second half, which deals with the moral and emotional dilemma of turning in his jihadist friends to the police, that the memoir becomes the most dynamic and captivating. The author guides readers through his inner turmoil as well as the incredibly tense situations he was caught in as an informant. From one scene to the next, the absorbing story shifts from suspense to philosophically thorny questions about religion and community.
An engrossing autobiography that delivers believable, straightforward accounts of religious extremism and its large, complex consequences.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4834-9549-1
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This biography, much discussed even before its publication, is as mammoth as Brando himself—and a compelling read. Most of the details supplied by Manso (Mailer: His Life and Times, 1985, etc.) regarding Brando's myriad peccadilloes, sexual and otherwise, are essential for a complete picture of an unusually complex and distasteful human being: self-absorbed, manipulative, a poor parent, and a user of women. (No doubt Brando will present a different picture in his autobiography, which Random House will publish this month; no advance galleys are available.) Born in 1924, Brando was the son of two ill-matched alcoholics. His mother, with whom he had an almost incestuously close relationship, was a free-thinking bohemian; his father was a pompous businessman with a penchant for shady dealing. Brando was a troubled and troublesome boy who was thrown out of several schools and never got a high school diploma (though he later became a voracious reader). When he moved to New York City to pursue the theater as a career, it was his close relationship with Stella Adler, who taught him acting, that grounded him. After receiving excellent notices in several smaller parts, his dazzling performance in A Streetcar Named Desire led him to Hollywood, where, as Manso observes, he established ``his indelible, transcendent image as a genius among actors.'' Manso is good at eliciting from Brando's colleagues a sense of his unusual working methods and startling flair for improvisation on camera. Regrettably, Brando's ambivalence about his work and his self-indulgence off camera resulted in a self-loathing that affected his acting. Until The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris, most people in the film industry were prepared to write him off as a spent bullet. Manso traces Brando's involvement in the American Indian Movement, his long-standing love affair with Tahiti, and the gruesome story of the shooting of his daughter's boyfriend by her half-brother Christian. To Manso's credit, the book is neither a hatchet job nor a bronzing. His biggest weakness is an inability to relate the actor to his times in a specific way, falling back instead on a laundry list of current events. Nevertheless, a page-turner that will fascinate even Brando's detractors—maybe especially them. (First serial rights to Vanity Fair)
Pub Date: Oct. 10, 1994
ISBN: 0-7868-6063-4
Page Count: 1120
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Nutty and delightful.
Tragicomic first-person tale of what most men want and all women have, as told by a deliciously potty-mouthed dame.
In this too-short debut, the forthright Patsy tells of her realization–during and especially after a protracted, stop-start affair with a gentleman named Peter who showers her alternately with attention and indifference–that biology is destiny only so far as a gal’s willing to play by the accepted rules of the game. Her chosen man seduces her in person and via e-mail, and though the sex is great–and great fun to read about–something is missing: respect, trust, honesty and all the things that can turn desire into love. Part memoir of an affair gone wrong, part empowerment tract for women of all ages (“My book is lovingly, respectfully dedicated to my dear granddaughters and all young girls,” the author writes), Power of Pussy is a surreal first-person narrative enlivened with funny lists, factoids, poetic self-help musings and fascinating tidbits about the mating habits of praying mantes. It’s also a crisp dissection of her romantic misadventure with the aforesaid jerk. He cheats on her (maybe), she responds with jealousy, they separate and then regroup–and repeatedly continue the timeless roundelay. But eventually she gets wise to the fact that while it might be a “man’s world,” she and her sex–like the Athenian ladies in Aristophanes’ fourth-century comedy Lysistrata, who refuse to put out until their men agree end the Peloponnesian War–hold the real power. When Patsy finally realizes that power is hers for the taking, she starts biting back–thus the book was born.
Nutty and delightful.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4257-3826-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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