by William Todd Schultz ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2013
A well-researched biography in which the subject still remains elusive.
Heavy psychological examination of the life of melancholic indie-rock troubadour Smith.
Published to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Smith’s tragic suicide, “psychobiographer” Schultz (An Emergency in Slow Motion: The Inner Life of Diane Arbus, 2011, etc.), known for his analytical acumen in exposing the inner lives of artists like Truman Capote and Diane Arbus, gives the same head-shrinker treatment to the long-lamented singer/songwriter. Smith is probably best known for his melancholic song “Miss Misery,” used in the Academy Award–winning film Good Will Hunting. Yet he was such an introverted, enigmatic figure that even the hundreds of hours of interviews Schultz conducted with friends, loved ones and acquaintances still barely make a dent into what made Smith tick and what made him ultimately take his own life. The author traces Smith’s troubles ostensibly back to childhood and vague hints of emotional abuse at the hands of his stepfather. Schultz skillfully interprets Smith’s laconic quotes and makes broader interpretations of how his thought processes work. The author ably covers Smith’s childhood growing up in Texas and Portland, Ore., through his high school and Hampshire College years, his initial brushes with midlevel fame in Heatmiser and then his bigger success as a solo artist. In the end, however, Smith’s descent into drug addiction and ever-increasing depression doesn’t seem too far removed from the same morbid sensibility and inability to come to terms with fame that drove Kurt Cobain to suicide. Although Smith can certainly be a sympathetic figure, by the final chapter, readers are no closer to Smith psychologically. What we are left with, however, is the unpleasant fact that he willfully dragged his friends and girlfriends through his own empty existential hell, which isn’t exactly a redeeming quality.
A well-researched biography in which the subject still remains elusive.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-60819-973-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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