While the vivid, first-hand memories of struggle and triumph—of William Zorach, Maurice Hindus, Mary Antin, Abraham Cahan, and others—are the backbone of this sequel to his documentary World of Our Fathers (1974), Meltzer isn't content with celebrating the success stories. These are the immigrant milieux of Remember the Days (also 1974) reexamined in a harsher, sociological light: Meltzer focuses on the pressures toward Americanization that turned Mashkes and Yankels into Marys and Jims and on the process by which, in the words of historian Lucy Dawidowicz, "the freedom to make money became an obsession" for some. He shows how whole villages—and the attendant class conflicts—were often reassembled in American garment businesses, and he celebrates the success of Jewish socialists in organizing labor unions yet still questions whether the factory was in all ways a dramatic improvement over the sweatshop where, as in the factory the work was "more minute, more intense, and more monotonous." Similarly, the reminisces of those who found public education a thrilling opportunity are balanced by the caution that the schools still failed to equalize opportunities for Jews or any other group. And nostalgia for the old Daily Forward—recalled here along with the Yiddish theater and Essex Street cafes—is tempered by a reminder that the Yiddish press developed its own brand of yellow journalism. Although others have drawn on much of the same sources (Karp's Golden Door to America [p. 667, adult] is the most recent and rich), Meltzer's succinct and intelligent commentary can serve, simultaneously, as a popular introduction to the era and a reexamination of the melting pot myths. . . and it could be an agreeable bridge to the more than 75 titles in his well selected bibliography.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1976
ISBN: 0440984920
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1976
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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