Those who loved the author’s debut should enjoy this follow-up.
Prequel to Rolling Stone contributing editor Sheffield’s Love Is a Mix Tape (2007).
There’s a truism in rock that a breakthrough hit the first time through will often lead to a sophomore slump. The author’s second attempt to use favorite songs to reflect on and illuminate his life isn’t really a disappointment, though it necessarily lacks the emotional power of Mix Tape. Where that memoir of the 1990s had a natural narrative arc, from the birth of love to the heartbreaking death of the author’s young wife, this successor, which focuses on the ’80s—the musical culture and the author’s formative years—is more of a hodge-podge collection of essays straining for cohesion. Proceeding chronologically, with 25 chapters titled after songs released during the ’80s, Sheffield pursues a general theme of how girls and boys talk about, think about and feel about music differently. There are incisive chapters on Hall & Oates, Paul McCartney and the Replacements (“they made good imaginary friends”), along with revelations about how the author was an altar boy until 16, never had a girlfriend until 19 and had a traumatic experience clipping his grandfather’s toenails. Though the reader learns in passing about the author’s remarriage, much of the talk about girls concerns his younger sisters, “the coolest people I knew.” Where Sheffield’s debut felt cathartic, some of this book seems comparatively glib—for example, “There are times in a man’s life that can only be described as ‘times in a man’s life.’ The first time he experiences A Flock of Seagulls is one of them”; “MTV was, roughly speaking, the greatest thing ever.”
Those who loved the author’s debut should enjoy this follow-up.Pub Date: July 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-525-95156-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2010
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
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
© Copyright 2024 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.
