An eloquent, affecting collection that offers lessons in poetry, in love, and in family.
A surprisingly poignant selection of letters between Beat Generation poet-guru Allen Ginsberg and his father, Louis, a career English teacher and an accomplished poet himself.
Schumacher (Francis Ford Coppola, 1999, etc.) published a biography of the younger Ginsberg in 1992 (Dharma Lion) and first approached him about this letters project at that time. Schumacher’s thorough, amiable introduction sets the stage for the remarkable father-son performance that follows (Schumacher does not disappear, but like any other good editor he remains unobtrusive, emerging only to offer the occasional clarification). The letters begin in the mid-1940s. Allen matriculated at Columbia Univ. when he was 17 and displayed all the odious symptoms of the adolescent-away-from-home syndrome. Louis did not hesitate to chide his son (“You are developed intellectually; but, emotionally, you lag”), but what overwhelms throughout is the adamantine bond of affection that connected the two. When in 1947, for example, Allen wrote to say he had signed on as a common sailor aboard a ship bound for Dakar, Louis replied with love rather than disappointment: “It’s O.K. Lots of luck to you, Allen.” In 1948, Louis was shocked to discover that his son was gay, but soon embraced his male lovers without prejudice. When Allen’s classic poem “Howl” appeared, Louis was ecstatic about his son’s success, comparing him to Whitman. Throughout his years of celebrity, Allen remained devoted to his father, writing regularly from the far reaches of the globe (he once sent him some clover from Shelley’s grave). Both commented freely on the work of the other—Louis was always troubled by Allen’s “dirty, ugly words”; Allen continually urged his father to be less conventional. In later years they did popular joint readings, while they argued about Cuba, Communism, Vietnam, the Black Panthers, Israelis and Arabs, and Watergate. Louis died in 1976, and when Allen died 21 years later, some of his ashes were buried in his father’s grave.
An eloquent, affecting collection that offers lessons in poetry, in love, and in family.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-58234-107-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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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