A witty, cynical, and ultimately charming account by an English expatriate married to a native and trying to raise his children in Italy. Parks (Italian Neighbors, 1992) has lived in Italy for the past decade, teaching English at the University of Verona. The author of seven novels (Shear, 1994, etc.), he brings his perceptive analysis of human nature to bear on the eternally fascinating Italians and their perennially exasperating rules, regulations, and requirements. Here the focus is on his young family: wife Rita and children Michele and Stefania. The author amusingly describes the national obsession with its offspring. In a country with the lowest birthrate in the world (1.3 per family), Italian children are pampered, spoiled, and humored from their very first day of life. For an atheist Englishman, sometimes it all seems too much. It is not only the children who are receiving an Italian education, but Parks himself. Like many others, he discovers, ``The story of my fatherhood has been that of a long strategic retreat from the systems I had hoped to impose.'' In the end, his children will succumb to what has been called Italy's ``fatal charm.'' This seduction can (possibly) be resisted by adults who scorn the cult of the Madonna, stories of statues that weep blood, and the worship of Mamma. But for Michele and Stefi, Italy is part enchanted playland, part elaborate facade, part intricate labyrinth. As many expatriates have discovered, living in Italy can be overwhelmingly complicated; Parks's short chapters chronicle his adventures with the often absurdly contradictory system of laws governing everything from getting a fishing license to buying a home—and his discovery of ways to navigate around them. Small vignettes of life, fragments of society, aphorisms of a people and a culture that add up to a thoroughly enjoyable look underneath Italy's tourist facade.
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-8021-1508-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
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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