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HAVE MERCY!

Name: HAVE MERCY!
Author: Wolfman Jack
ISBN: 0-446-51742-9

CONFESSIONS OF THE ORIGINAL ROCK 'N' ROLL ANIMAL

by Wolfman Jack with Byron Laursen ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 20, 1995

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A jolly anecdotal romp through Wolfman Jack's life as a disc jockey and improbable pop-culture legend. Born in 1938, future Wolfman Bob Smith grew up in and around New York City. His parents divorced when he was five, and he divided his unsettled youth between running with a gang and pursuing his overlapping loves: rhythm-and-blues and radio. Smith honed his craft at a tiny radio station in Newport News, Va., where in addition to spinning records and polishing his patter, he messengered marijuana, dabbled in pimping, and inaugurated interracial on-air dance parties. After a stint in Louisiana, where his commitment to mixed-race entertainment inspired the KKK to burn a cross on his lawn, Smith invented the Wolfman Jack persona and finagled himself a time slot on XERF, a Mexican border station so powerful that at night it reached most of the United States. This book's hilarious, tongue-in-cheek highlight, which reads like a collaboration between Mark Twain and Sergio Leone, explains how the Wolfman essentially took over XERF. This entailed bribes to the Mexican government, the extortion of hundreds of thousands of dollars from evangelical preachers, a gun battle at the station's transmitter in the middle of the desert, and an attempted assassination in a seedy hotel room. During the late '60s and early '70s, the Wolfman's broadcasts were heard by huge audiences; one listener, George Lucas, famously structured American Graffiti around Wolfman Jack's voice. The memoir (written with coauthor Laursen) provides many entertaining accounts, but it downplays the unpleasantness of his marital infidelities and drug use. A genuine fan's infatuation for rock and R&B music is evident throughout. Wolfman Jack makes a droll, infectiously enthusiastic raconteur of his own strange career. (4 photo inserts, not seen) (Author tour)

Pub Date: June 20, 1995

ISBN: 0-446-51742-9

Page Count: 384

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.