Drivel about a driveler.
The superficial life of the superficial author of all those superficial, lubricious and extraordinarily popular sleaze-fests of the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, when ghost writers replaced the dying doyen of the “dirty novel.”
Wilson (Beautiful Shadow: The Life of Patricia Highsmith, 2003, etc.), hasn’t come up with much here. From an early age, Harold Robbins (born Rubin) gleefully lied about his life, inventing episodes and characters as facilely as he did later at his typewriter. So his biographer was forced to look at public records like census data and high-school attendance sheets, to conduct interviews with survivors (neither of Robbins’ two daughters offers much here) and to wax creative. For example, Wilson begins each chapter with a Robbinsian passage along the lines of “next to having sex, driving a cool car was one of the greatest pleasures of his life” and generally ends with a brisk, “keep-on-reading” sentence such as “but even fiercer sex and censorship battles lay ahead.” This ludic silliness aside, Wilson settles for skating along the admittedly high-gloss surface of Robbins’ life. Yes, his was a Horatio Alger–style tale; Robbins actually rose from stock boy to pen The Carpetbaggers and other lucrative titles. And, yes, the text makes it patent—and ultimately rather dull—that Robbins liked sex. Lots of it. Wilson tries hard to establish that it was women the author liked, not the services they provided, but after witnessing some of Robbins’ escapades and “preferences” (prostate massages are among the milder ones), readers may well want to head for the shower. The man could sell books, though: 750 million or so, which for a while provided him with villas, yachts, fast cars and fast lanes and accommodating (young) women. Massive debts and a wheelchair, however, were his ultimate fate.
Drivel about a driveler.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-59691-008-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
