A certain modesty of scope, a specificity of observation, and an adherence to the ingrained understanding of a native are what make this ``the-making-of'' story a surprisingly successful book about the legacy of the civil rights movement. Morris (New York Days, 1993, etc.) gives a good-natured chronicle of the making of Ghosts of Mississippi, Rob Reiner's movie about the 1994 conviction of Byron De La Beckwith for the murder of Medgar Evers three decades before. It's a curious mixture of a serious civil rights history and a whimsical peek into the Hollywood fiction factory. But these elements are held together because the movie was based on such fresh facts that it became a small part of the history itself. The Hollywood and the history are also held together because they're both rooted in Morris's personal experience growing up near the movie's setting and as an originator of the project. Ghosts of Mississippi attracted criticism for its focus on the white hero-prosecutor, Bobby DeLaughter. But Morris's sympathetic account leaves little doubt of the enormous, and probably rare, amount of good faith behind the project while documenting the complex route, the combination of creative talents and real-life characters, that brought the story from a memo by Morris all the way to the screen. But while Morris notes that he ``had grown up with this diabolic hatred,'' he reveals almost nothing about his own experience in the Jim Crow South, sticking mainly to the landscape in his reveries. Still, he waxes eloquent on Mississippi's deep, distinctive past and uses his childhood recollections to otherwise great effect in observing the movie's dramatization of that past. If, in the words of film critic Jami Bernard, the movie made ``a convincing case for why history weighs so heavily'' on its hero, Morris equally convincingly shows history weighing heavily, for once, on Hollywood. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-679-45956-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1997
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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