Much like Aerosmith’s career, this candid memoir will be cheered by fans, but rock critics will likely be underwhelmed.
Founding member and lead guitarist of American rock band Aerosmith details his life and times in this autobiography.
One of rock’s most enduring and popular bands, Aerosmith has managed the unlikely feat of recording top hits across several decades, gaining a loyal army of fans while failing to win over the acclaim of music critics. Readers of rock autobiographies will find much familiar material here, as early struggles give way to staggering success and the accompanying roller coaster of sex, drugs, rehab, internal band squabbling, villainous management and more. This is well-trod but mostly entertaining ground, and Perry—with the assistance of veteran music writer and ghostwriter Ritz (co-author: Glow: The Autobiography of Rick James, 2014, etc.)—does a decent job keeping things moving. Aerosmith has never been accused of being an intellectual band, but the author takes pains to establish himself as a thoughtful, well-read individual with a love for nature established as a youth wandering in the New Hampshire woods. But his desire to be taken seriously leaves the narrative strangely free of humor; it doesn’t seem like compiling this book was an enjoyable task for Perry. Of the group’s other members, lead singer Steven Tyler is the only fully developed character, and Perry doesn’t hold back in airing his (many) grievances about their relationship. The memories become a little bit sharper once Perry gets sober, and the tale of the band’s entanglement with manager Tim Collins, who seemed to exhibit a cult leader–like control over the group, is perhaps the most interesting part of the book. An appendix written by Perry’s guitar techs is a bonus for guitar geeks.
Much like Aerosmith’s career, this candid memoir will be cheered by fans, but rock critics will likely be underwhelmed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1454-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
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
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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