An up-to-date and revealing rock biography that sets a standard of completion that will likely prove hard to beat.
A full account of the singularly influential English band, drawing on extensive research and interviews with some (but not all) of the major players.
Ever since they broke up 25 years ago, The Smiths have been subjected to an endless stream of biographies and cultural studies. So what does Fletcher (The Clash: The Music that Matters, 2012, etc.) have to add? Up-close scrutiny and a broad sense of perspective. He takes in the local history, delving into the 19th-century politics that formed the gloomy industrial landscape of Manchester, U.K., and shaped the lives of two of its sons: an asexual, vegan, Oscar Wilde wannabe named Morrissey and a T. Rex-worshipping prodigy named Johnny Marr. Fancying themselves the next Leiber and Stoller, they hired bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce and set out on an extraordinary five-year run. Lush, decadent, mopey ballads—about bullying, pedophilia, murder and all-around terminal alienation—appeared at such a frantic rate that not even four studio albums could contain them; some of their best works were singles that arrived in bursts of inspiration. Fletcher, working with the full cooperation of Marr and Rourke, but not Morrissey and Joyce, delivers a credible view of life from inside this whirlwind; he captures the lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry of the two leads and closely follows the band’s brief journey from local indie curio to New Wave phenomenon. It isn’t always smooth sailing; the endless backstage business details are a drag to read, and at times (although not always), Fletcher is too charmed by Morrissey to notice just how unpleasant he can be (especially when he’s fantasizing about murdering Margaret Thatcher or romanticizing suicide).
An up-to-date and revealing rock biography that sets a standard of completion that will likely prove hard to beat.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-71595-1
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
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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