The serendipities and pitfalls of foreign travel fuel Dodson’s great loving embrace of fatherhood.
A happy-go-lucky noodle around the “backyard of Western civilization” with Dodson and fils.
It was to be an eight-week, 40,000-mile round-the-world tour for Dodson—a man who truly enjoys rambling about with his children—and his 11-year-old son Jack, also known as Nibs: across Europe, a dip into Africa to see the black rhinos, then moonlight on the Taj Mahal, the view from the Great Wall. It would be a roving Chautauqua, a broadening of experience and the spirit. It doesn’t turn out that way, at least not geographically, but western Europe does very nicely for father and son and their episodic traveling companions, giving Dodson a chance to dispense both his erudition—the collective wisdom of Ben Jonson, Martin Luther, Lord Byron, and Cyndi Lauper, among others, fall easily from his lips—with great humor. (Maybe one reason Dodson has so much fun traveling with his kids is that he believes in the power of laughter.) Traveling without reservations or firm schedule, the two become certified fools in Glastonbury, devour every museum Paris offers, and, since the US embassy suggests it may not be the best time to voyage into Africa, head north to Holland, land of Vermeer, Rembrandt, chiaroscuro, dope, and sex (“‘Hey, Dad, what’s that?’ Jack called out excitedly. . . . ‘I think that’s the world’s largest plastic vagina, son’ ”), and go on to Ghent, where a shopkeeper cackles of the German tourist influx, “Fifty years ago they came with tanks. Now they come with American Express cards.” Dodson’s fatherly advice to Nibs—there’s plenty, from girls to bullies to faith—is less didactic here than in Final Rounds (1996), more self-effacing and sincere: “The nude body is nothing to be ashamed of, Nibs. Unless of course, it’s mine.”
The serendipities and pitfalls of foreign travel fuel Dodson’s great loving embrace of fatherhood.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-525-94762-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2003
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
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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