In one late entry, Nin complains, mildly: “My world is so large I get lost in it”; readers will do the same—and gratefully...
In a book published in association with Sky Blue Press, the celebrated diarist, novelist and electric personality reappears with all the fire of her eroticism in pages untouched by a Bowdler or a Puritan.
Or an editor, it seems: There are no notes, timelines or other aids for readers embarking for the first time on Nin’s ocean. Even the photographs bear only the names of the subjects and a location (“John Dudley at Hampton Manor,” for example). These annoyances aside, readers will find Nin a most entertaining companion—her multiple simultaneous relationships with men, her gleefully graphic descriptions of sex acts. The author does not include much in these diaries about public events (Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima and V-E Day merit brief mentions); mostly, she is interested in her interior world—and in the choreography of sexual relationships, in and out of bed. Her lovers were, in some cases, celebrities—among them Henry Miller, critic Edmund Wilson (whose pudgy body she compares unfavorably with those of her younger beaus) and actor Rupert Pole. Nin yearned for the unknown, as well, including random young men she met on college campuses during her readings. Among the most interesting passages involve her relationship with young Gore Vidal, whom she found incredibly attractive and bright (she cooled when she saw how he portrayed her in his novel The City and the Pillar). Though he reciprocated, nothing much physical could occur between them due to his homosexuality, which he initially lied to her about. (She was not fooled.) Nin also examines her many sessions with her therapists, her dreams, publishing projects, frustrations with critics, fears and fantasies, regrets and resolutions. “I live drunk with desire,” she writes.
In one late entry, Nin complains, mildly: “My world is so large I get lost in it”; readers will do the same—and gratefully so.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8040-1146-4
Page Count: 440
Publisher: Swallow Press/Ohio Univ.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
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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